Duty and the Springs of Sorrow
by HistorianoftheKais
Summary: Crazy adventures are nothing new to Ranma. He even had an adventure in another world before he ever learned magic and curses really existed. However, keeping the craziness of two worlds separate is getting harding for Ranma as he gets older. At least his partner in all this craziness is packing enough firepower to help Ranma deal with his life.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the various respected source materials used in this story. These materials start with, but are not limited to Digimon and Ranma ½.

Ranma mentally held back a sigh as he dodged a fast paw swipe from his father. The old man's attacks in panda form had gotten real old and predictable real fast. There was once a time when the thought of fighting a giant panda that knew martial arts would have completely shocked the cocky sixteen year old. Unknown to Genma that time for Ranma was back when he was twelve before Ranma had a multi month long adventure in the time Genma spent one day at a bar.

That adventure was why Ranma was able to cope so well with all of the bizarre shit he dealt with in Nerima was because it all was tame compared to the shit he had to deal with on his adventure. The one time Ranma had been freaked out about magical or bizarre had been when his dad had been cursed and that was because he didn't think things like that could happen in the real world. It was a good thing that Ranma didn't usually freak out about weird things considering that his one freak out had landed him with a curse that caused him to switch genders.

Ranma weaved around an attempt at a kick and gave his father an irritating grin. "Is that all Old Man? I've seen sentient snot that could throw an attack faster than that." Mentally, Ranma was willing to admit that the creatures he was thinking of with that insult were technically mollusks. However, Numemon looked like snot and were about as useful. Ranma had found dodging their shit throwing attacks to be somewhat useful as a dodging exercise. But, there were better and less stinking ways of developing dodging skills than fighting with those embarrassments for champions.

Genma was about to pull out a sign to insult Ranma. However, Ranma interrupted that distraction by grabbing the sign and hitting his father over the head with it. The young martial artist followed this up with a kick that sent his furry father flying into the koi pond. Despite Genma's constant protests and insults, Ranma had long surpassed his obese father in the field of martial arts. Ranma had been the one dealing with all of the insane martial arts challenges since getting to the dojo. He had been the one constantly training to deal with a rival with a potentially deadly new technique.

To Genma's credit, the older Saotome did keep in good physical shape even with his girth. He also kept his martial arts skills up which put him far ahead of his buddy and fellow master Soun. Ranma usually played along when the master of the Tendo branch of Anything Goes started to cause a scene to keep the peace around the dojo. The young boy could read Soun's movements and knew that Soun had lost his edge and some of his skill. Soun's abilities were nothing to sneeze at and the rusty martial arts master could still floor most masters in the martial arts world. It was just that Soun didn't put in the effort to recover to the level that Genma maintained.

Usually, Ranma would play along with his father since he offered a good spar without any serious consequences. Who else was he supposed to spar with to keep up his skills around Nerima? Akane was a decent martial artist. Ranma could admit that in the privacy of his mind. She just wasn't up to his level in skill or abilities. The only time Akane could get the drop on him was when she got mad at him and blindsided him for something that got her upset for some bizarre reason. He could help her get better in martial arts, but she couldn't help him get better practicing martial arts. Soun might have some old skills from his branch of Anything Goes that would be useful to learn. But, Ranma figured that Soun would either be too emotional to teach or would insist that such skills only be passed after Ranma married Akane. Happosai had the skill and ability, but there was no way that Ranma was going to give the old leach any ammo to claim to be his teacher. Besides, the old leach would probably try to spend most of the spar fondling Ranma's girl side.

Finding a regular sparring partner outside the Tendo Dojo was very unlikely for Ranma. Ukyo was slightly better in a more specialize way skill wise to Akane so going to her to train his skills was just as pointless. Both Kunos were out of the question since they were crazy and didn't have the skill to make sparing with them useful for Ranma. Ryoga might be a viable choice if the little pork butt could be counted on to regularly be in town and didn't cause so much property destruction. The Amazons were a possibility, but the chaos that would bring into his life would just be too much. Ranma could handle chaos, but he also liked some peace and quiet every so often.

However, today was not a day that Ranma could afford to spar with his father as he had places to go and an old friend to see. Ranma shouted out, "Good spar Pops, but I've got to leave." He then entered the house and made his way to the kitchen where Kasumi was cooking a big breakfast. The gender cursed martial artist ducked out of Kasumi's way and said, "Breakfast smells wonderful Kasumi. I won't be joining everyone for it today because I've got to head out to see an old pal of mine." Ranma opened the refrigerator and pulled out several bagels and a small square of cheese for his breakfast.

Kasumi blinked her eyes in surprise at the fact that Ranma was skipping breakfast. She then shrugged her shoulders slightly and continued to work on breakfast. It must be important for Ranma to meet this old pal if he was willing to skip one of her breakfasts to go see this person. Usually it took a major adventure to keep Ranma from being at the dinner table at meal times. She saw Ranma walking out of the kitchen and called out, "Have fun visiting your friend."

Ranma nodded his head and said, "Will do." He then proceeded to bite into a bagel as he headed towards the front door. The young man finished his first bagel just as he reached the front door and started eating the next one as he walked through the door. Ranma jumped onto the nearby fence and started running down the street in his usual manner. When Ranma got to the end of the fence he took a running jump to effortlessly get onto a nearby roof. He pulled an empty trash bag out of his meager hidden weapons pocket while in mid jump and started to clean the gutters of the houses as he ran on them. This little trick had proven to be a great idea for Ranma. He got to practice his hand speed and coordination while running and people stopped complaining about him running on the roofs.

The trash bag was filled up just as Ranma finished cleaning the roof of Ucchan's. Ranma casually dumped the filled up trashcan in the big dumpster Uyko kept behind her restaurant and he pulled out another trash bag. With a change of direction Ranma continued his rooftop run until he reached another spot in town where he could drop off his bundle of garbage. The young man completed this pattern three more times to throw off any possible followers until he reached his true destination.

Furinkan High School was not a place anyone expected Ranma to be on a Sunday. Ranma landed on the roof of the school and made his way to the access door. The principle had locked the door so he needed to chuck the pineapple bomb into the pool to get into the school. He could have thrown the bomb into the air, but then it would explode and cause people to wonder what was going on at Furinkan.

Walking through Furinkan when the school was closed was not for the faint hearted. Principle Kuno loved to leave all sorts of traps for those who would dare to enter his school after hours. There were pressure plates hidden in the floor that triggered dart shooters loaded with knockout poison. Fire breathing statues of the principle in Hawaiian shirts were randomly placed in corners. Occasionally a hula hoop with razor edges would be thrown out of a random locker. Parts of the floor had actually been replaced with coal pits to walk across. To top the insanity off, Principle Kuno actually had a giant boulder set to chase someone down the longest hallway in the school.

There was a bored look and Ranma's face as he ran down the hallway from the boulder with his arms calmly folded behind his back. He could have destroyed the boulder if he wanted to do so. However, that would let everyone know that a major martial artist had been in the school after hours that letting that knowledge out was unacceptable. Ranma spotted his destination and ducked in. The boulder harmlessly rolled by the one room in school that almost everyone thought Ranma would never be in: the computer lab.

A cheerful smile appeared on Ranma's face as he walked towards one specific computer, sat down in its accompanying chair, and booted up the computer. The teen pulled out his digivice from his pocket and put it down on the table as he anxiously waited for everything to load. It had been over a month since a digiport last opened in Nerima for any real length of time and Ranma really wanted to see his friend and partner again. Hell, Ranma had been considering risking getting stuck with one of those brief digiportals if his partner hadn't sent the pulses to his digivice yesterday letting him know that a digiport would be opening for a real length of time soon.

Getting stuck in the Digital World for a few days actually didn't sound so bad now that the teen thought about it. He wouldn't have any fathers annoying him, no fiancées to risk annoying, and no rivals out to attack him at odd hours of the night. Once he got back he could claim that he just went on a private training trip and no one could dispute it. They'd all grippe about it and there would almost certainly be some shouting. However, no one could really complain since Ranma knew his skills would improve from such a trip and it had been a while since he left for a week or so for heavy duty training.

Those thoughts flew to the back of Ranma's mind when he saw the digiport load up and that it was open. He grabbed his digivice and stood up. Ranma then held his digivice to the computer monitor activating the digiport. The computer monitor started to glow and a brilliant blue light filled the computer lab as Ranma vanished from the regular world.

* * *

Ranma arrived in the Digital World in a sector of the Great Wastelands of the Server Continent. More specifically, he arrived at an oasis about three days from the hidden entrance to the former Piximon's home. The digiport for this sector was thankfully in the oasis instead of in the surrounding desert. Ranma didn't particularly care for the heat of the desert; especially, this desert given the problems he had faced at the other end of the Great Wastelands. Still, Ranma was more than willing to put up with the heat and the occasional bad memories for the chance to be with his partner.

A voice called out from the desert, "Ranma! You were able to make it!" The martial artist whipped his head around and smirked as he saw his partner Flamemon running towards him. Digimon and human embraced as Flamemon jumped up to hug Ranma. A full grin was on Flamemon's face as he gave Ranma a hug that would have injured a regular human. Ranma wrapped his arms around his partner and returned the hug with equal fervor. "I'm never going to miss a chance to spend time with you Flamemon." After a moment, the duo ended their hug and Flamemon casually jumped down to the ground. A trained martial artist would have noticed that Flamemon's jump showed that he had some training in the Saotome branch of Anything Goes.

Flamemon and Ranma then headed for the digimon's 'home' within the Oasis. In reality, what Flamemon called home was a dense cluster of trees with a hammock near a section of the Oasis's pond that was almost split off into another pond. There was a mini-fridge near the one of the trees holding the hammock that the digimon used to keep his food cold and as a step into his hammock bed. Flamemon opened his fridge and grabbed a soda before jumping onto the mini-fridge and then onto the hammock. He motioned for Ranma to grab a soda of his own as he carefully opened the can in his hand. The digimon waited until Ranma had his soda and then raised his can in the direction of Piximon's house. He then said, "To friends that we haven't seen again yet."

Ranma raised his can to join in the toast for friends and allies the duo hadn't seen since their holding actions against the Dark Masters. He then took a deep gulp of the soda and turned to look at his partner. Fighting the Dark Masters had forced Ranma to mature very quickly for a twelve year old as he witnessed the deaths of many good digimon during his holding action. What made everything worse for Ranma was that for every evil digimon he and his partner along with young Ken and Wormmon put down another three seemed to appear in the fallen evil digimon's place.

Ranma Saotome and Ken Ichijouji had not been selected as digidestined by the Agents who served the Four Guardian Beast members of the Digimon Sovereigns. Instead, Ranma and Ken had been chosen by Huanglongmon, the leader of the Digimon Sovereigns, who had discovered that the boys were additional Crest bearers. Huanglongmon created the boys' partners, gave physical form to the duo's Crests, and created their digivices before calling the duo to the digital world. Ranma as the bearer of the Crest of Duty and Ken as the bearer of the Crest of Kindness had to hold the line in the Digital World until the eight other Chosen Children returned.

The duo had run into other digidestined several times in the months they fought against the Dark Master's agents. However, none of those digidestined had a Crest limiting their digimons to the Champion level. Every Chosen Child was a digidestined, but not every digidestined was a Chosen Child. The power that the forces of the Dark Masters commanded was too much for a regular digidestined to do much more than be an annoyance. It had just been Ranma and Ken during the last month of their adventure before the other Chosen Children returned. Huanglongmon had deemed it too dangerous for the digidestined to stay and so as the only remaining free Digimon Sovereign he sent all but his chosen back to the Real World.

Still, not everything was terrible about that time. Aldamon and JewelBeemon had managed with some help to separate Ghoulmon from the other Dark Masters and deleted the Lord of the Swamps. Ranma and Ken also got something of a break while the other eight Chosen Children fought the remaining four Dark Masters. Huanglongmon had his chosen protecting all of the regular digidestineds' digimon and acting as specters to keep the Dark Masters distracted while the others picked them off one by one. Well, mostly Ranma since he tried to keep his eight year old honorary younger brother safe as much as he could. Huanglongmon had kept Ranma, Ken, and all the partnered digimons safe in his own pocket dimension when Apocalymon showed up in order to protect them and the Digital World's Kernel. Ranma and Ken had sentry duty at that time so that Huanglongmon could focus on insuring that there was a Digital World once the battle was over.

Ranma took another sip of his soda and leaned back against the shady tree next to the hammock. All the pain and hardship he experience on his adventure were definitely worth it to Ranma. He had the best friend a man could hope for in Flamemon and he had helped to save two worlds. Ranma glanced over at his partner and watched as Flamemon crushed his empty can and lay back in the hammock without a care in the world. "Hey Flamemon, have you seen Wormmon recently? I was wondering if he's heard anything from Kenny recently."

A small smile appeared on the digimon's face as he heard Ranma's nickname for Ken. The smile disappeared as Flamemon mentally counted how long it had been since he last seen or even heard from his old partner in crime Wormmon. "I haven't heard from Wormmon for some time. When we last spoke he said that he felt a pull to the east like Ken was trying to reach him. However, that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Ken didn't have lots of chi or training in martial arts like you do Ranma. Wouldn't Ken need to send Wormmon a message via one of the digiport monitors if he can't manipulate his chi? None of the destined digimon I've heard about can communicate with their partners across worlds like you and I can."

Ever since their original adventure ended, Flamemon and Ranma learned to communicate by sending pulses of energy across their bond in Morse Code. It was tricky to do as both of them needed to be meditating at the same time, Ranma's digivice was needed as a medium, and the conversations could only last a few minutes each time. However, it was something both of them cherished and was a special means of communicating born from necessity. Genma had kept Ranma out in the woods so often for training that email had not been a reliable means of communication until Ranma moved to the Tendo Dojo.

Ranma's face hardened slightly as he thought about what Flamemon told him. "Maybe Ken found an open digiport in his home town and came to the Digital World wanting to spend time with Wormmon? Every digidestined I've ever met always wants to spend time with their partner and digimon never have trouble finding their partner if it is physically possible to find one's partner. It might also have something to with the fact that Ken is a Chosen Child like me and everyone else we've heard about is simply a regular digidestined. The Boss was rather vague in the differences between a regular digidestined and a Chosen Child other than the fact that Chosen Children are born with Crests that help their partners achieve higher levels of digivolution."

A melodious female voice cut in to the boys' conversation. "You are so lucky you're cute Ranma or I'd have to give you a nasty scar for disrespecting Lord Huanglongmon by referring to him so casually." Both Ranma and Flamemon turned to see Darcmon floating a couple of feet away and in the air. A playful look was on the champion level female angel digimon as she gazed upon the duo. Darcmon floated down and landed next to Ranma. She then patted Ranma's check once and said, "It would be such a shame to mess up such a handsome face; especially, one belonging to a digidestined who can challenge many champion level digimon to an even fight."

Darcmon took a step back, twirled another step back allowing Ranma to get a complete look at her, and then winked at him as she held her staff in a charming manner. "I don't doubt that you'd fight me if I tried to do anything to you Ranma. However, I am just too much mon for you to handle at your current abilities. Maybe in the future your strength will have to tame me on the battlefield." Darcmon ended her little speech by moving her arms to help accentuate her bust line.

Flamemon got in Darcmon's face with a twitch in his eye as he yelled at the angelic digimon. "Okay cut it out Pinupmon. If you're here to say something from the Digital Sovereigns then say it and leave. Otherwise, leave me and my partner alone! I don't get enough time with him as it is and I don't need you eating into Ranma's limited time here." It seemed to Flamemon like every other female humanoid digimon wanted to be with Ranma. However, Darcmon was the worst and most persistent digimon after his partner. Ranma was his digidestined partner and by the Sovereigns, Flamemon refused to get replaced as Ranma's digimon!

The angel digimon picked up the rookie by the scruff of his neck and held him out at arm's length. Darcmon gave Flamemon a smug and condescending look as she replied, "You may be a rookie digimon, but there's no reason to be so childish Flamemon. I came here because Lord Huanglongmon wishes to speak to you two about something." Darcmon had a slight twinkle in her eye as she turned to look at Ranma. "I can give you a lift if you want Ranma."

Ranma nervously shook his head and replied, "That will be okay Darcmon. Flamemon can take me to wherever The Boss wants to meet us. Besides, my partner needs to get some training in at the higher levels.

A frown briefly appeared on Darcmon's face before she said, "Okay Ranma. I don't mind you watching my six as we fly." She then suddenly released Flamemon so that he fell to the ground. The angel took a step back with an innocent look on her face as Flamemon looked up and glared at her while he rubbed his rump.

Flamemon got to his feet and said, "One of these days I'm going to dedigivolve you into a Salamon and then I'll dropkick you into Mihirashi Mountain." He then turned to Ranma and said, "Give me the fuel to turn up the heat Partner."

Ranma nodded his head and infused some of his chi into his digivice. Thanks to his training, Ranma didn't need to tell his partner to digivolve in order to mentally focus his chi into the digivice. Flamemon felt the power coming from his partner and cheerfully shouted out, "Flamemon digivolve to Agunimon! Agunimon digivolve to Vritramon!" Seconds later, the light of digivolution faded to reveal Flamemon's draconic ultimate level.

Vritramon gave Ranma a quiet nod and then walked over so that he could grab his partner. Ranma allowed Vritramon to hold him in his partner's arms in a hold similarly to how someone would hold a baby. One of Ranma's arms was slung around the Rudriya Darpana on Vritramon's right arm for support. Of course, Ranma and Vritramon would beat up anyone who said what Vritramon's grip looked like.

As Vritramon stood up, Darcmon smiled and said, "All right then. We're off to see Lord Huanglongmon. Just keep your eyes on me and we'll get there in no time!" Both digimon then took off into the sky leaving the oasis empty.

* * *

Even at top speeds, it took Darcmon and Vritramon almost an hour to arrive at the hidden backdoor portal floating in the sky where they could gain access to Huanglongmon's separate digital plane. The desert vanished when the trio entered the portal. Ranma, Darcmon, and Vritramon now found themselves floating in a tunnel composed of glowing green digiscrpts that were shifting far too fast for any human and most digimon to read. Beyond the green code was an almost mind numbing infinity of darkness.

Darcmon floated down and a clear ripple stopped her about a foot away from the digiscrpt underneath her feet. She turned to look at Ranma and Vritramon as she spoke to them. "Now that we're in the Backdoor Zone its best if we walk. It's faster here for us to walk then it is for us to fly."

Vritramon floated down to the ground of the tunnel stopping a foot away from the code underneath his feet. "I never understood that about this realm. Why do you have to travel in different ways to get to different locations faster?"

Darcmon shrugged as she glanced at the walls of the tunnel the trio was in. "I am not too sure why that is the case either. However, I do know that it acts as an excellent additional security for the Backdoor Zone. Remember, with the portals the Backdoor Zone can take you almost anywhere in the Digital World faster than any other form of transportation that keeps you in this dimension. We've got some decent security systems to protect the portals to this zone. But, if the forces of Darkness ever got access to and learned the secrets of this zone we'd have complete chaos in the Digital World."

As soon as Darcmon finished speaking she stopped walked and started taping several seemingly random points on the wall of the tunnel. Several symbols of digiscript started to glow yellow even though the angel digimon's finger was stopped several inches from the symbols by the hidden boundaries of the tunnel. The now yellow symbols glowed for a few seconds before a new corridor appeared in front of the trio. Darcmon led the trio into the new corridor and the tunnel closed behind them once they were all in the new tunnel.

This process was repeated several times until the trio arrived at Huanglongmon's little corner of the digital world. Vritramon dedigivolved as soon as he left the Backdoor Zone. The area that the trio found themselves in was a large zen garden with the utterly massive Huanglongmon regally resting in the distant center. Dozens of various holy digimon could be seen in the distance tending to one thing or another that the visitors couldn't clearly see. High in the sky floated the Digital World's Kernal acting like the sun in this pocket dimension. The trio had a brisk walk through the zen garden for a length of time until they reach the center where the Sovereign resided.

Floating in front of Huanglongmon was a Klein Bottle shaped map of the Digital world and its various sub dimensions. Ranma and the now Flamemon deliberately did not at one of the most accurate representation of the Digital World and its sub-realms. The Digital World's geography was something that could only truly be appreciated by someone who had an intrinsic understanding of very high level mathematics. Anyone else should content themselves with a local map and an acceptance that bizarre land features were part of this world.

Huanglongmon turned one of its eight eyes to look at the Trio. Darcmon immediately fell to her knees and prostrated herself in homage to the leader of the Digimon Sovereigns. Ranma and Flamemon gave the dragon a low bow at the waist and then looked up at their superior. Huanglongmon's mouth never moved, but it's powerful and wisdom laded voice filled the minds of the trio. "I am pleased that you completed your mission so quickly Darcmon."

The champion angel digimon's face became a red as a cherry from her pride at Huanglongmon's words and her nervous fear of embarrassing herself by showing how happy she was at the news. The divine mega read Darcmon's thoughts and was amused at what it saw. These young digimon really needed to learn how to balance propriety, etiquette, and being themselves. The sovereign honestly found the excessive ceremony a little annoying given how so many digimon seem to dance around on eggshells around it. That made Ranma and Flamemon's attitudes rather refreshing.

Ranma looked at the one authority figure he could unquestionably respect and asked, "So why did you call us into your office Boss?" Almost every digimon in the pocket dimension seemed to stop and stare in shock towards where Ranma was standing. Darcmon felt a sweat drop form on the back of her head and wondered how the hell she was supposed to apologize for her love's faux pas. Flamemon was lazily standing with his hands resting behind his head wondering why everyone seemed to get annoyed at his partner when they visited Huanglongmon.

A chuckle filled the minds of everyone else in the garden as Huanglongmon replied to Ranma's question. "Straight to the point as always Ranma, I suppose that's fitting since one cannot be delayed by excessive formalities if one is to do their duty. Chosen of Duty, you and your partner have been called here because a dark threat is looming on the horizon for the Digital World. The precise nature and source of this threat is hidden from me at this time. What is important at the moment is that this threat seems to be secretly using a front man to attack at this time. The threat's front man is a Chosen Child that has been corrupted somehow into wanting to enslave the Digital World as the self-styled Digimon Emperor."

Ranma hands tighted into fists as Huanglongmon continued to inform him of the situation. "Details are still rather vague at this time about the Digimon Emperor as he has captured and enslaved many digimon to his will. I do know that he is somehow creating a field in his ever growing territory that blocks the transfer of energy between digidestined and partner preventing digivolution as you know it in his lands."

Both Ranma and Flamemon were shocked when they heard about this Digimon Emperor having the ability to stop digivolution. The duo turned to look at each other with grim resolve. Flamemon was almost as strong as most champion level digimon and Ranma was on the same level. However, two pseudo-champions could not stand up to an entire army on their own. Aldamon had been lost to the duo ever since Ranma was cursed at Jusenkyo. Something about the curse unbalanced Ranma's spirit to the point that he couldn't harness the Crest of Duty to the level needed to digivolve Flamemon to mega. Not being able to call on Vritramon or even Agunimon would leave the duo up shit creek without a paddle.

A thought crossed Flamemon's mind and he called out to Huanglongmon. "Hey, you said that this Digimon Impotent can prevent digivolution as we know it. Does that mean there's a way to digivolve that we don't know about?" Like partner, like digimon Flamemon had little sense of tact and even less desire to use it. Some of the digimon in the garden were wondering how these two disrespectful ingrates could dare talk to Huanglongmon in such a way.

The bootlickers' self-righteous indignation was like a cool refreshing drink to Huanglongmon. The divine dragon digimon then stated, "That is correct Flamemon. There is a way to bypass the so called Digimon Emperor's anti-digivolution fields. This way involves and archaic and inferior method of digivolution known as Armor Digivolution."

Ranma blinked his eyes in confusion and asked, "What is Armor Digivolution and how does it work while regular digivolving doesn't?" Ranma and Flamemon had done some research into digivolving ever since they found out about the curse's little side effect and neither of them had ever heard about Armor Digivolving before.

Darcmon nervously spoke up, "I have heard about Armor Digivolution before. Would it be acceptable for me to explain Lord Huanglongmon?" The angel felt a reassuring and supportive presence from the mega causing her to nervously stand up. Darcmon diliberatly stood so that she could see Ranma and not have her back face Huanglongmon. She then spoke with a little more confidence in her tone. "Armor Digivolution was a method of digivolving that developed in the ancient past of the Digital World. Going by the flow of time before the Great Reset, this would be the equivalent of the early 1970s in your world Ranma."

"There were far fewer digimon species during this time period and digivolving past the rookie stage back then was nearly impossible. A series of items known as digimentals were discovered to hold great power and could boost a digimon to the champion level. An extremely rare subset known as the golden digimentals could even digivolve a digimon to the ultimate level. That's actually why that level is known as the ultimate level; for hundreds of years it was seen as the peak of digivolution."

A frown appeared on Darcmon's face as she thought about the ancient records she had read as a Salamon. "Digimentals are very rare. It's estimated that there was 1 digimental for every thousand digimon back then and the fights over them were brutal. Even having a digimental didn't guarantee a digimon safety as the digimentals could only keep a digimon at a higher level for a limited amount of time before having to recharge. Holders of digmentals were often killed for their digimentals when they were tired or before their digimental had a chance to recharge. Those holders who weren't killed often went on murder sprees to try to prevent other digimon from attacking them. Whole species of digimon were driven to extinction during this time period."

"This period of suffering ended when normal digivolution to the champion and ultimate stages started to become more common. Since they weren't limited by a charge that took time to regenerate, the normal champions and ultimates were able to outlast and delete most of the armor and golden armor digimon. The rise of normal higher level digimon caused the demand for digimentals to plummet as digimon now knew of a way to digivolve on their own. New species of digimon started to appear at this time who were not compatible with digimentals causing them to be even less desired. Eventually, the digimentals faded into legend to most digimon and their purpose lost."

Huanglongmon's voice then filled to duo's minds as the divine dragon further explained things. "The Sovereigns decided to help speed up the Digital World's ignorance of Armor Digivolution by sealing away the digimentals. They were necessary for their age, but something that was better for the Digital World to move on from when it could. Now, it is necessary for Armor Digivolution to be used again do to the so called Emperor's actions."

A slight sigh could be heard in the tone of Huanglongmon's voice as he said, "But, bringing back Armor Digivolution will not be an easy task. The threat has managed to lock down the other Sovereigns in their temples greatly reducing their ability to help in fight this threat. Without my fellow Sovereigns' help, I cannot unseal all of the digimentals without causing serious problems for the Digital World. Furthermore, only 3 out of all 1297 digidestined have partners that are compatible with digimentals. One of those three is the one calling himself the Digimon Emperor. The digivices all digidestined have were not designed to use digimentals so the two uncorrupted digidestined could not use them if they came into possession of one."

Flamemon started to tap one of his feet and cut in, "Okay, I know all of this is really important information. However, can we please cut to the chase here? Am I one of those partnered digimon that can use a digimental? If so where can I get one and how would I use it?" Flamemon would have said more, but Darcmon firmly stepped on his tapping foot and shot him a glare the promised pain.

Huanglongmon turned another eye to Flamemon and said in everyone's mind. "You are a unique category Flamemon. You currently cannot use a digimental. However, your code is such that I can make you capable of using a digimental with a minor modification. This modification would have consequences. Your mind, memories, abilities, and normal digivolution line will remain unchanged. But, the modification I would be making would disrupt your core so that it would be weeks or perhaps even months before you could digivolve to ultimate again. The choice to have this modification is yours and yours alone."

* * *

Author's notes: Welcome everyone to my newest story. I know that many of you are going to be annoyed that this isn't the continuation of Hero of Heaven. Sorry, but my muse for Naruto needs a vacation and this idea has been bubbling in my brain for a while now.

Timeline wise, this is a few weeks to a month before the start of Adventure 02 for Digimon and after the Herb arc for Ranma. I have reworked Ken's backstory to fit Ranma into the story. I have also set it up so that digidestined refers to anyone with a partnered digimon. Chosen Child on the other hand for this story will refer to a special subset of digidestined that just contains Ranma, Ken, and the cast from Season 1. Digimon species names will typically be the Americanized version. I first watched Digimon as dubbed so that's what sticks to my mind. Vritramon is an exception because I honestly thought calling it BurningGreymon was more of poor excuse for brand recognition.


	2. Chapter 2

Flamemon wasn't sure what he should do about Huanglongmon's offer to alter his code to allow him to Armor Digivolve. This wasn't something that Flamemon ever expected to have to think about. He turned to Ranma and asked, "What do you think partner?"

Ranma closed his eyes and said, "I'm not saying a thing on this choice one way or another. My biggest sore point about my curse after its effect on you is that it changes what I am without my consent or control. I'll stand by you no matter what you choose and we'll figure out a way to deal with this current threat to the Digital World eventually." Ranma was fully aware that things would most likely be easier fighting the Digimon Emperor for the duo if Flamemon could Armor Digivolve. Being able to digivolve to ultimate for the next couple of weeks or months really didn't matter if one couldn't digivolve period on the battlefield.

Similar thoughts were flying through Flamemon's head at the same time. Like Ranma, Flamemon loved fighting and he had a frightening intelligence that he brought to bear in everything combat related. Where that intelligence was in regular social situations was a completely different matter. Huanglongmon suspected that Flamemon's intelligence hid wherever Ranma's intelligence was camped out at.

The rookie digimon let out a sigh as he clenched his fists. Flamemon looked up defiantly at Huanglongmon and called out, "Let's get this over with. Make me able to Armor Digivolve."

Huanglongmon's voice filled Flamemon's mind as it spoke. "I will do as you requested. The process will be painful and the consequences of this change will take time for you to get used to Flamemon. However, I do see that if you do your duty you will eventually regain all that you've lost." A beam of white energy then shot out of iris of one of the eyes Huanglongmon used to look at Flamemon.

The beam struck Flamemon causing him glow and scrunch his face in pain. Ranma worriedly watched his partner as the brightness of the glow coming from Flamemon increased. Arcs of what looked like electricity, but were actually strands of small digicode started to dance from different parts of Flamemon's body. Soon the pain became too much for the rookie to bear and he let out a blood curdling scream of utter agony.

Ranma bolted to try and help Flamemon. All he cared about at that moment was that his partner was in pain and that needed to be stopped. Darcmon grabbed Ranma and barely held him in place with his hand a hairs breath away from the aura surrounding Flamemon. There wasn't a hint of flirtatiousness or playfulness as Darcmon hissed in Ranma's ear. "Stop Ranma, the best thing you can do for Flamemon is to calm down and let the change happen. Don't touch him and you should absolutely not send your energy to him. Things will be worse for Flamemon if he tries to digivolve in the middle of this transformation."

Without ever letting his eyes off of his partner Ranma replied, "I've got to do something. Flamemon's is my partner." Being held so closely by a busty young woman would normally leave Ranma a little flustered. However, his concern for his partner overrode those typical feelings.

Darcmon shifted her position slightly to hold Ranma even closer to her. She tried to convey a feeling of safety and a sense that everything would be alright to her crush. "Remember Ranma, Lord Huanglongmon is having to change something at the very basic code of who and what Flamemon is as a digimon. Changing something throughout all of a digimon so quickly cannot be pleasant. We'll both be here for Flamemon once the transformation is over to help him. Look, the light is starting to dim so the change must be in the final stages."

Ranma could see that Darcmon was telling the truth. The arcs of digicode had stopped entirely and the aura around Flamemon was starting to decrease. Most importantly to Ranma, Flamemon's cries of agony were transforming into whimpers of pain. Darcmon let go of Ranma as soon as the light was gone from Flamemon. Ranma bolted to his partner who was panting on the ground and shivering from the pain that had wracked his body. The Chosen of Duty wrapped his partner protectively in his arms and hurriedly whispered, "You're safe Flamemon. You got through this. I'm here if you need me."

Over and over again Ranma repeated these and other comforting phrasing to Flamemon as his partner recovered from his ordeal. Darcmon, in a breach of etiquette that pleased Huanglongmon, fully extended her wings to hide Ranma and Flamemon from the sight of everyone besides Huanglongmon. Flamemon slowly started to recover as Ranma helped him with his comforting presence and the bits of chi he was unconsciously sending to his partner. Huanglongmon wished there was something he could do to help Flamemon recover faster. But, there were just some things that needed to be done on their own time.

* * *

It was over an hour before Flamemon recovered from the transformation that had done to him. Both Flamemon and Ranma turned to look at Huanglongmon again as Ranma spoke up. "Okay, Flamemon can now Armor Digivolve. But, what are we going to do about my digivice or about getting our hands on a digimental? I remember you saying that my digivice doesn't work with digimentals and that we need digimentals in order to Armor Digivolve."

Huanglongmon answered Ranma's question in his usual manner of speaking. "The issues concerning your digivice and of acquiring a digimental are much easier to solve Chosen of Duty."

Ranma felt something odd with his connection to his digivice and immediately looked to his waist where his digivice was resting. The screen of the digivice turned on and then the whole digivice started to glow a dull red. Within seconds, all features besides the glowing screen were impossible to distinguish on the digivice. It then morphed it shape so that it looked something like a walkie-talkie with a burgundy base color and black colored hand grips. Ranma closed his eyes and used his chi to sense what he could about his digivice's new form. All of the old connections he was used to where still there and there were additional connections that Ranma wasn't about to poke around with at the moment.

The mega then said, "This new model of digivice is based on what we have learned from the true threat's perversion of the so called emperor's digivice. Several features that will prove especially useful to fighting the wayward Chosen Child have been included such as the ability to Armor Digivolve. Additionally, you new model digivice has been given the ability to open and close Digiports at will using any computer."

Ranma snapped his head up in shock looking at Huanglongmon's face in shock when he heard that last bit of news. He could open and close Digiports at will now? No more waiting weeks or months before he could see Flamemon again? No more having to keep the patterns of Digiport openings and closing in mind to keep from getting stuck? "Thank you." Ranma managed to say in a whisper.

The divine dragon didn't reply to Ranma's thanks. In its mind granting the new model of digivices the ability to control Digiports was a necessity. Before the Great Reset, digidestined could spend months in the Digital World with only a few easily explainable hours passing by on Earth. The synchronization of time between the two realms meant that digidestined had to return back to Earth regularly to keep from having problems in their world. This hadn't been a problem when the world was at peace, but this would be a problem now that the digidestined were needed again to defend the Digital World.

Unknown to all the digidestined, the Digiportals were created by the Digital Sovereigns as a thank you gift to all digidestined. The digidestined had suffered so much to save a world that wasn't their own that it was only fair that they get to enjoy the peace they fought for. The Digiports were only opened for a limited time because the Sovereigns didn't want the digidestined to retreat from Earth to the Digital World. No one questioned it when a Digiport just barely stayed open long enough for a digidestined who lost track of time to make it back home. The fact that the next portal wouldn't open near the digidestined in question for several months instead of several weeks just served as helpful reminder that one should never lose track of time.

Sadly for this nice reward system, the Dark Digivice created by the threat was a giant monkey wrench. The fallen chosen could come into the Digital World any time he felt like it and his digivice couldn't be locked out of accessing the Digiports. Digivices had loads of special software and some hardware in place to prevent anyone from sabotaging any functions. It would take too much energy and concentration for Huanglongmon to hack into the Digiport program to allow Ranma and the other soon to be Armor Digivolving capable digidestined back and forth every day until the threat passed. Just leaving a Digiport or two open until the current threat was dealt with was a terrible idea and a dangerous one for the Digital World.

Huanglongmon wasn't too worried about Ranma or the two other Chosen Children having the ability to travel back and forth between Earth and the Digital World at will. Those three had proven that they could handle the duties needed of them and that they could be trusted with such a privilege. It was much more worried about these new digidestined that were being selected by Azulongmon as the remaining three Digimon Sovereigns created their partners. Effectively drafting someone to fight a war they weren't aware even existed and then giving them the means to flee at any time they felt it was too much was not a wise move in the dragon's mind. The fact that they were effectively giving the newbies massive bonuses that weren't given to the earlier and proven digidestined also went against Huanglongmon's sense of justice.

However, what one wanted to do didn't always match up to what one needed to do even when someone was a god. Having two, now three with Flamemon's transformation, digidestineds and their partners fighting against the darkness was a foolish move regardless of how powerful the trio was. Flamemon was the only digimon among the partnered digimon that could be made able to Armor Digivolve. Finding children capable of becoming digidestined was tricky as only 0.0001% of all humans could form the bond essential to being a digidestined. The bond also had to be formed, even if digidestined and partner didn't actually meet, before the human became a teenager in order to not have any negative effect on the human. Adding to the previously mentioned issues was the fact that the Sovereigns typically fashioned the partner digimon to match the digidestined. Working backwards to find a potential digidestined suited for a preselected digimon was causing headaches for all the Sovereigns. Ebonwumon half-seriously suggested that the Digimon Soveriegns delete themselves to escape their confinement and stop the headaches.

The divine dragon calmly spoke to Ranma. "With you digivice's upgrade, there remains only one thing left before Flamemon can Armor Digivolve. I have a digimental that I stored away in here long ago. I felt that it was my duty to do my part in making sure the digimentals were hidden away and protected from misuse. It is now my duty to give this digimental to you so that you can help restore the peace of the Digitial World. " A tiny pulse of dull red light shot out of one of the Digicores on Huanglongmon's back and stopped to float in front of Ranma. The light faded to reveal a floating tetrahedron of a faded red fired brick color. Engraved in black on one facing of the tetrahedron was the symbol for the Crest of Duty.

Ranma grabbed the digimental in one hand and he could feel the power stored in the ancient item. He looked at his new digivice and the digimental wondering how he was going to use them to help Flamemon armor digivolve. Darcmon politely coughed to get Ranma's attention. She then said, "The records I read indicate that the old digimon used to say 'Digi-Armor Energize' to activate the digimental. Perhaps you can do the same thing Ranma."

Both Ranma and Flamemon looked at each other wondering if they should give Darcmon's suggestion a go. Flamemon shrugged his shoulders and said, "It wouldn't hurt to try."

Figuring that it wouldn't hurt either Ranma firmly spoke the phrase, "Digi-Armor Energize." The digimental in Ranma's hand glowed dull red and then shot in a beam strait towards Flamemon.

A powerful rush similar, but also very different, to the rush of chi Ranma sent him to digivolve flooded the rookie digimon. Flamemon felt himself unable to stay on the rookie level and let this new wellspring of power transform him. As his body was hidden by a display of light the digimon shouted out, "Flamemon Armor Digivolve to…" Flamemon's new champion level began to take shape in the light and a much higher pitched voice continued the traditional chant, "Kazemon!"

Silence greeted the arrival of Kazemon for a few seconds before Kazemon realized that something had changed about himself, or rather herself. Kazemon looked down at her generous cleavage and then lost all her cool yelling out, "What the hell?! Why by the Digital World am I a girl?" Digimon didn't advertise it, but digimon did have genders. Normally, humans couldn't tell what a digimon's gender was. This was because digimon species were typically monomorphic. There were exceptions with a few single sex variants in a digimon's digivolution line like Angemon and Angewomon.

Ranma sighed and said, "Just de-digivolve Kazemon. That will probably change you back." Ranma wasn't about to comment on his partner's sudden sex change. He did that far too often with far less control than what his partner would apparently have.

Kazemon reverted back to Flamemon causing the digimental to fly back into Ranma's digivice. Flamemon started patting himself down as soon as he was back to rookie to confirm that he was indeed male again. Once Flamemon calmed down a bit he started to narrow his eyes. "Ranma," the digimon said in a questioning manner, "How did you know that I'd return to being a guy if I de-digivolved?"

The only human in the sub-dimension shrugged his shoulders and said, "I wasn't certain that you'd return to being a guy Flamemon. However, it seemed reasonable that your gender change would be linked to Armor Digivolution since you changed when you Armor Digivolved."

Flamemon huffed as he muttered, "So the only way I can fight this Impotent Loser is to turn into a chick? This really, really sucks wind."

* * *

In another corner of the Digital World, several other partner digimon were also mentally complaining about their situation. However, their situation was less embarrassing and far more deadly. Gatomon, Patamon, Agumon, and Gabumon were running through the forest with several dozen champion level mind-controlled digimon chasing after them. Patamon was in the lead acting as the scout for the group. "This way," the flying guinea pig called out as he spotted a path through a briar patch.

Gatomon was the first to follow Patamon through the briar patch. She was hot on Patamon's heels since as the only champion she was currently the strongest of the group and needed to be ready to take point. Agumon and Gabumon respectively fired their Pepper Breath and Blue Blaster attacks to try and scatter their pursuers before diving into the thorny thicket.

Agumon called out as the quartet weaved their way through the thicket, "Slow down Patamon and Gatomon. Gabumon and I aren't as quick through all of this as you two are."

Patamon nimbly turned around while standing on a branch with thorns as big as his legs to face the other digimon. A sheepish look crossed his face and he said, "I'm sorry Agumon. I just wish T.K. and the others were here. Then we could digivolve and put a stop to whatever is driving so many digimon mad.

Gabumon spoke up as he tore some thorns off of different branches. "Perhaps those dark rings we saw flying in the sky earlier have something to do with so many digimon going on a rampage? You know, like the Black Gears we had to deal with back when we first met our partners."

Gatomon cut in and said, "It doesn't matter what's causing the problems at the moment. What matters is that we survive to find the others and then get our partners so we can digivolve. Seven rookies and a single champion are not going to save the Digital World by themselves. Patamon, you should get back to finding us a route through this thicket." The firm commanding tone in Gatomon's voice as she spoke to her friend left no room for arguments.

"Right," there was no way Patamon was going to argue with Gatomon. Her order made a lot of sense and Patamon had been finding it harder to argue with Gatomon over the years. Patamon hopped onto another branch and continued to scout out a path for the quartet. He was trying to lead them to one of communications monitors that should be close. The monitors were able to send emails to Earth even if the Digiport was locked so going to one in order to get the word out about what was going on made sense. It was also a little risky since if something was directing the attacking digimon than the monitor would probably be monitored.

The quartet paused as they heard a Snimon and a Kuwagamon fly overhead. Gatomon quietly climbed a few branches and narrowed her eyes in concern. She could spot the two champion level digimon and several others farther away in the sky flying some kind of search pattern. With the utmost care, Gatomon climbed back down without making a sound and rejoined her friends. She then whispered, "We've got an aerial patrol to deal with. From what I could see they're canvasing the whole forest."

Agumon frowned as he thought about the situation. He then muttered, "We need to get the word out and escape. But, I don't see how we can do that if all of those digimon are searching for us from in the sky. If only Tai and the others were here. Then we'd be able to fight our way to safety."

Gatomon frowned as she narrowed her eyes. "Well our partners aren't here so we need to do something by ourselves to get out of this mess."

Gabumon's eyes widened as a thought occurred to him. "There's a Digiport monitor near here. We can use it to send a message to everyone letting them know what's going on. Maybe if we're lucky the Digiport will be open so that our friends can come and help us."

There was a worried look on Patamon's face as he spoke up. "I was leading us there since I had a similar thought. But, given what Gatomon said I don't think that's such a good idea." The monitor Patamon was thinking of was in the middle of a wonderful meadow with plenty of space from the surrounding trees. Normally, this would be wonderful as the meadow as a great place to have a picnic. Sometimes the digimon would even chat with their partners over a live feed from Izzy's, or Koushiro as the boy preferred using his real name over his nickname as he got older, computer.

Gabumon quickly countered his little friend's worries, "It's still the best plan we can have at the moment. Even if we don't get a message out and have to retreat we will probably pull the searchers attention to any monitors. We can then escape if they focus on the monitors. Best case is that we get the message out and then either escape thanks to our friends digivolving us or because our enemy is too focused on the monitor to see us run away. I'll send the message."

A gloved paw was held up in a hold on motion by Gatomon. "That's a good idea Gabumon, but you're the wrong mon to do it. I should be the one to send the message out since I'm quicker than you and I'm a champion so I can stand up to any one of our enemies who might attack me while I'm sending the message. Plus, I'm smaller than you so I'm less likely to be spotted."

Patamon hopped down from his branch to the grass next to the other digimon. He then added his two cents to the discussion. "I might also be a good choice to send the message. I am the fastest here and I am very small so it will be easier for me to hide around the monitor. You are the strongest Gatomon, but I don't think fighting would be a good idea. If you fight one of those digimon then the others will be alerted to your presence and attack. Fighting multiple flying enemies at the same time in an open area wouldn't be safe for you."

Agumon closed his eyes as he thought over what his friends were saying for a moment. He then opened his eyes and spoke to the other digimon hiding the thicket. "The only way we're going to get out of here is if we all work together like we did to defeat all our other enemies. Gabumon, you and I should stay in the thicket using our attacks to help cover Patamon who is going to try and send the message. Gatomon, we need you to guard Patamon up close so that he can focus on sending the message. Is that understood everyone?"

The three digimon looked at their unofficial leader and nodded their heads in agreement. They made their way to the digiport monitor in almost complete silence. Agumon motioned for him and Gabumon to spread out and then the duo signaled to their smaller companions that they were ready. Patamon to a second to calm his nerves and then he shot out of the thicket like a bat out of hell. Gatomon ran behind Patamon like the proverbial hound of hell hot on his heels even though she was a cat. Patamon got to the monitor as fast as his ears could carry him and began turning on the monitor.

His and Gatomon's movements did not go unnoticed. A Snimon spotted the rookie and champion digimon in the meadow. She let out a loud screech alerting the other servants of the Emperor that their targets had been spotted. The Snimon started to descend and was hit in the back by a Pepper Breath and a Blue Blaster. She started to turn to face her attackers only to get a Lighting Claw to the cheek courtesy of Gatomon. Before the Snimon could recover, Gatomon followed her first attack with a Neko Kick to the throat using the kick to return to the ground.

Half a dozen flying champion level digimon started coming in to assist Snimon. Patamon could hear their approach just as he could hear his friends fighting to buy him time to send the message. However, the monitor wasn't cooperating with Patamon as his eyes widen in horror at what he saw loading up. Patamon muttered in disbelief, "Configuring updates? Why of all times does the software need to update now? No! I do not want the latest and greatest Pineapple Experience! Oh hell no, you are not loading 16 updates now!"

Gatomon blinked when she heard Patamon curse. Her eyes widened in shock as her brain processed what Patamon had said, "Forget the message Patamon! We need to leave." This shift in Gatomon's focus had terrible consequences as the Snimon she had attacked earlier hit her from behind with a revenge attack. The holy champion cat was paralyzed for a few seconds by the attack allowing the other enemy digimon the chance to line up their own attacks.

In the thicket, Gabumon and Agumon desperately fired attack after attack trying to pull the flock of champions away from their friend. They both knew just how dangerous a group of digimon working in a group could be since they often fought with their friends in the past as a group. However, a hidden subroutine in the Dark Rings had been activated by Gatomon's and Patamon's presence. This subroutine ordered the enslaved digimon to ignore everything in order to destroy the two digimon with Gatomon being the priority target.

Patamon tried to help Gatomon by firing several Boom Bubbles, but these attacks were ignored by the champions focused on deleting Gatomon. One of the enslaved digimon moved just enough so that Patamon could see his friend. The sight of Gatomon beaten up and bruised in over a dozen spots terrified Patamon. Then like a switch was flipped inside him, Patamon became enraged at the thought of Gatomon in that condition. All concern for his own safety vanished with the thought that he had to get Gatomon to safety. The little rookie jumped into the air and flew faster than he ever had as a rookie before and grabbed Gatomon.

The flying rookie dogged an attack from a Kuwagamon and got to Gatomon just in time to pull her out of the way of a second Kuwagamon's attack. Patamon whispered to Gatomon, "Don't worry. I'll get you to safety."

Gatomon looked through her one eye that wasn't swollen shut at the surrounding digimon preparing their attacks. She whispered, "Save yourself, stupid."

Patamon saw that he was completely surrounded with half a dozen powerful champion attacks ready to be shot at him. There was nowhere Patamon fly without being hit by several attacks; especially if he was carrying Gatomon. Patamon closed his eyes and cried out as the enemy digimon unleashed their attacks, "T.K., help me!"

As the attacks closed in on Patamon and Gatomon, the two digimon found themselves covered in a golden light. This light erupted from the duo driving back the attacks and then turning into a column of light reaching to the heavens. When the light was gone, both Patamon and Gatomon had vanished.

* * *

Takeru Takaishi, better known among friends as T.K., was helping his mom get their boxes out of the U-haul truck and into their new apartment in Odaiba. T.K. was happy with the move since it got him closer to his brother and the other digidestined. The twelve year old had kept in touch with all his friends since their adventure four years ago, but it had mainly been via phone calls and emails. It had nearly been a year since T.K. saw everyone in person when he had gone to spend a week with his older brother Yamato, who T.K. could still get away with calling him by his old nickname of Matt, and his father.

Speaking of Yamato, T.K.'s sixteen year old brother had stopped by to help his brother and their mother get moved in. Yamato set a box full of kitchen tools down in the apartment's kitchen and glanced over at his brother. He then called out, "Hey T.K."

T.K. turned his head to look at his brother and called back, "Yes Matt?"

Yamato bite back a sigh when he heard the old nickname. Matt just didn't have the same effect as Yamato did when it came to attracting the girls and in promoting his band. Not that his band had any gigs yet, but they would soon and these were things that needed to be considered ahead of time. He then answered his little brother, "How are you feeling about starting middle school this year as the new kid in two weeks?"

Both brothers started to head back down to the U-haul to get another box each. T.K. started to speak as he exited the apartment. "I'm actually feeling pretty good about the upcoming school year. I've got my friends from my old neighborhood to chat with and I've got the old group here. The fact that I get to see you and the others more often is a big plus for me."

Nancy Takaishi was in the back of the U-haul determining what boxes needed to go up next and where they should go. She looked up from her list of what was in each box to see her two sons cheerfully talking to each other. It caused her to have a bittersweet smile at the thought of what might have been. Both of her sons climbed into the back of the truck and looked at her wondering what was next to go up. Nancy said, "Okay boys. The next item on the list is the bedframes."

The boys were about to go for the nearest bedframe when a massive golden light appeared outside the truck. Nancy wondered what was going on while both boys felt their digivices start to vibrate. T.K. felt a pulling on his heart and he instinctively knew who was in the light. He shouted out, "Patamon!"

Said digimon and Gatomon came flying into the truck as the golden light vanished. T.K. caught the two digimon barely managing to avoid hitting any of the boxes. The young boy blurted out, "Patamon? What happened?"

Patamon looked up at his friend with exhaustion in his little eyes. Whatever that light was, it had taken almost all of the energy out of the little rookie. A tired look crossed Patamon's face as he glanced at Gatomon. "T.K.'s here Gatomon. We're safe just like I said we'd be."

Gatomon let out a hacking cough and answered her friend in a hoarse voice barely above a whisper. "I guess you were right. Patamon, look after Kari for me. I don't think I'll be a position to protect her for a while."

Both Patamon and T.K. froze up and their eyes widened in horror when they heard Gatomon say that. Human and Digimon both blurted out, "Don't talk like that Gatomon!" This outburst caused Yamato and Nancy to approach the trio of human and digimons.

Everyone was now able to hear the champion as she rasped. "Promise me you two."

T.K. and Patamon lowered their heads and solemnly spoke at the same time. "I promise to look after Kari."

With the last of her strength, Gatomon smiled and said, "Thank you." She then closed her eyes and reverted into an egg.


	3. Chapter 3

T.K. held Gatomon's egg in shock and horror. This was the second time he had witnessed a partnered Digimon die in front of him and he had been helpless to save them. The fact that Digimon, even apparently partnered digimon in the real world, could come back as eggs didn't change the fact that Gatomon had died. For a few seconds, everyone in the U-haul joined T.K. in staring at the digiegg in the boy's arm. T.K.'s brain then seemed to reboot and he promptly put the egg under his shirt to make sure that the egg stayed warm. He turned to his bother and mother rapidly saying. "We need to get all of the digidestined together! Kari needs to be told first about Gatomon. We also need to get some towels to keep Gatomon's egg safe and warm."

Yamato spring into action and pulled out his cell phone. He started going through his contact list and said, "I'll start calling everyone." He then hopped out of the truck just as he found the desired contact. The older digidestined could be heard speaking, "Yagami residence? This is Yamato Ishida. Mrs. Yagami I need to speak to Taichi and Kairi now. Okay, I can wait a moment."

Nancy started opening one of the nearby boxes and pulled out a laundry basket and some towels. She started to make a bed for the digiegg while wondering what this all could mean for the future. Part of Nancy was terrified that this was the start of another series of threats that her boys would have to be placed into mortal peril to stop. The fact that one of the other kid's protectors had been turned into an egg in front of her eyes only heightened Nancy's fears. Another part of her wanted to ease the pain that her little boy was feeling right now.

Once the impromptu bed was ready, Nancy gently set it down by T.K. who then gently removed the digiegg from under his shirt and placed it in the new nest. Patamon got off of T.K. and glided over to the nest holding Gatomon's digiegg and carefully landed on it. The rookie looked like a beanie baby gargoyle with his ears out as he kept up a constant scan for any threats to his dear friend. He had failed once to save Gatomon, he wouldn't fail again.

Nancy carefully walked around the repurposed laundry basket and wrapped T.K. in her arms. She pulled her son close and whispered softly into his ear. "Don't worry T.K. Everything will be alright eventually."

T.K. didn't lean into his mother's hug like he usually did if something upset him and he needed his mother's loving comfort. His attention was focused on his digimon partner and the digiegg of their mutual friend. One of T.K.'s hands gripped into a fist and he muttered, "Things will be alright. I'll make them right."

Yamato got Taichi on the line as his mother and bother stood vigil over Gatomon's egg. "Taichi, this is Yamato. We've got a big problem and it involves the digimon. Get Kari and head over to T.K.'s new apartment." Yamato listened to Taichi's questions over the phone and was able to find a point to cut his friend off. "You'll find out what's going on when you and Kari get here Taichi. Now let me give you the address so that you and your sister can get over here while I call everyone else!"

The blond digidestined gave Taichi the address for T.K.'s new apartment and ended the call. Sora was the next on Yamato's call list. Once she was informed, Yamato moved on to calling Koushiro and Joe. Thankfully, they were at home so he didn't have to leave a message with their folks or try to peck out a message on the D-Terminal. Mimi was the last on Yamato's list to call because it was frankly hard to get her off her cell phone once she was on it. It took Yamato almost twenty minutes to get Mimi off of the phone and when he did he could hear the sounds of her getting on the subway.

Taichi and Hikari, who still usually went by Kari, Yagami came running into view just as Yamato flipped over his cell phone to put it in his pocket. Taichi ran over to his friend while Hikari felt a pull to the U-haul truck knowing in her heart that something dreadful had happened. Without the slightest bit of a hello, the usually polite girl ran for the boarding ramp. Taichi stopped in front of his pal and asked, "Why did you call us here?"

Kari's cry of horror and disbelief cut off any response Yamato was about to make. Both older brothers shifted so that they could see inside the U-haul where Kari had fallen to her knees in front of the digiegg's nest that Patamon was still guarding. T.K. broke free of his mother's grip and dashed over to the young girl to give her a much needed.

Sobs could be heard coming from the preteen as she buried her head into T.K.'s chest. "Why?" Kari mumbled between the sobs. "Why did this have to happen to Gatomon?"

Taichi was about to move in to try and comfort his sister when Nancy motioned for him to back off a bit. Nancy thought that too many well-wishers too soon would cause the young girl additional stress. Taichi was standing so that he was only a step and a hop away from Kari if she needed him. Both of the teen's fists were clenched to the point where they were drawing blood and an enraged snarl was on his face. A glance into Taichi's eyes and the storm of utter furry brewing in them was terrifying to the freelance writer.

T.K. spoke once Kari's cries started to calm down. "I don't know what happened yet. Seeing to Gatomon's digiegg was more important. Once everyone gets here we'll find out what happened and then we'll make whoever did this to Gatomon pay."

Everyone who had ever met Kari could tell you that she was a very sweet and loving girl who anyone would be happy to know and proud to call a friend. Her caring nature and her budding good looks had caused her to catch the attention of several boys at the middle school who were each trying to work up the nerve to ask her out this year. However, those who truly knew Kari could tell you that she had a spine of steel when needed and a temper that burned just as hotly as her brothers' if it was aroused. Threatening any of her friends in general, and Gatomon in particular, was the best way to rouse Kari's temper.

Kari muttered in a low and scary voice that only T.K. was able to clearly hear. "I want whoever did this to pay. I want them to pay dearly for hurting Gatomon."

* * *

The digiport in the Furinkan High School computer lab activated with a brilliant show of light. This light faded in a few seconds to reveal Ranma and Flamemon standing in the lab. There was a dark and worried look on Ranma's face as he glanced at his partner. Ranma really didn't want to make the Nerima Knuckleheads aware of the Digital World. Letting them know that there was an entire world out there that he could go to for training or relaxation that they couldn't get to would cause a massive headache. Flamemon's presence and the past he represented would do doubt cause tons of yelling and a few crazy accusations when they got to the Tendos. This would no doubt be repeated as the regulars found out, reacted to Flamemon's presence, and reacted to others reacting to Flamemon.

But, at least Ranma could help and protect Flamemon here in Nerima. Ranma had been planning on simply leaving Flamemon in the Digital World and visiting him every day to deal with the Digimon Emperor. That all changed when the boss informed him that one of the other Chosen's digimon had been reverted to a digiegg by the Emperor's forces. Ranma would rather deal with complete insanity and hell in Nerima over risking Flamemon being forced to revert to a digiegg.

Ranma's mystical background and experience gave him unique insight into Digimon and the connection Digidestined had with their partners. The connection was a bond that went both ways and affected both human and digimon. It transcended dimensions and connected the duo in a bond closer than most romantics used to describe soul mates. The bond could be subtle and unnoticeable if one was not highly aware of their personal energies. Ranma knew that the Digital Sovereigns were rather tight lipped about some details of the connection and that he didn't have the words or possibly even the ability to properly describe what he had felt during his meditations.

However, one thing Ranma and Flamemon were aware of was that shock to the bond could have massive effects on both the digidestined and the partner. Something like a digimon reverting to a digiegg would be a major shock to the bond. This was especially true if the partner digimon didn't have at least a few seconds to prepare themselves in order to dampen the effects their reformatting would have on the bond. Both Ranma and Flamemon hoped that the chosen child and their partner digimon would get through the reformatting without too much trauma.

A quick look around the computer lab confirmed that there was no one else besides the duo in the room. Ranma turned off the computer with the digiport and then sighed. "Well buddy; I guess it's time to introduce you to some of the inmates at the Nerima Nuthouse. Hopefully, we'll get a week or so before you have to meet some of the real crazies we've got here." Concern and fear for Flamemon's life after he heard about the other chosen's partner reformatting was setting Ranma on edge.

Flamemon gave his partner a cocky grin to mask his own worries about all the changes this day had brought. "Don't worry Ranma, I'm better trained than most rookie or champion level digimon and you said that very few people here even have the strength to approach the champion level."

That did not set Ranma at ease. "Playing cocky with an opponent is one thing Flamemon. Having confidence in your abilities in a fight is one thing. However, actually being cocky is a whole different issue and will have you writing checks your ass can't cash. You know this just as much as I do Flamemon."

The digimon looked up at his friend and rolled his eyes. "Of course I know that Ranma. I'm just trying to let off some steam. You're not the only one worked up about everything the Boss told us today. I mean, one of us turning to the dark side, the headaches caused by Armor Digivolution, and now a partnered digimon getting reformatted? I just hope it wasn't Wormmon and that he's safe from this Imperial Idiot."

Ranma gave his partner a smile and said, "Don't worry about Wormmon. He was able to be stealthy far more than either of us ever could. If any partnered digimon can safely survive in the Digital World now I'm sure it's him. Now, let's go face the gauntlet of introducing you to everyone." Ranma then lead Flamemon out of Furinkan and onto the city rooftops. In any other ward this would have caused a lot of attention to be focused on Flamemon. However, the people of Nerima had trained themselves to not pay too close of attention to anyone on the roofs. This was even more so when the person on the roof looked different from normal.

Human and digimon made good time getting to the Tendo Dojo even with the zigzag pattern Ranma took to hit the other roofs for gutter cleaning that he hadn't gotten before. The duo stopped at the front gate of the Tendo Dojo and Ranma rang the doorbell. Kasumi opened the door a few seconds later and said, "Welcome to the Tendo, wait Ranma, why did you ring the doorbell?" Kasumi stopped talking completely when she registered who was at the door and his companion. There was a slightly dumbfounded look on Kasumi's face as her eyes focused on Flamemon. She had seen some strange people before, but the Digimon took home the gold in that category.

Ranma smiled at Kasumi and said, "Hi Kasumi. This is Flamemon, the friend that I said I was going to visit today. It turns out that his home dimension is being taken over by a corrupted kid with delusions of grandeur so he needs a place to stay for the time being. Mind if he crashes here until the two of us can beat down the dork and free Flamemon's homeland?" Ranma paused to look over Kasumi's shoulder and said, "If it helps Mr. Tendo, Flamemon is a practitioner of Anything Goes."

Everyone else living at the Tendo Dojo was standing behind Kasumi looking at Ranma and Flamemon with curious or surprised eyes. Genma was the first to speak up among the assembled crowd. "Boy, just who is this? I don't recall ever meeting someone like this during our training trip."

Flamemon snorted and said, "Of course you never met me. Ranma was summoned to my world four years ago by the head Sovereign of my realm. I suppose a more relatable term for you people to call the one who summoned Ranma would be god. There was a time different between our worlds at the time so Ranma got to spend months with me in my world while you spent some hours drunk at a bar. You all might have seen my world. Do any of you recall seeing a strange seeming landscape floating upside down in the sky about four years ago?"

Something clicked in Nabiki's mind and she said, "That was your world? Why was it up in the sky like that and why is it that all posted information on that event seems to disappear in a few hours?" Nabiki liked mysteries and puzzles; they were a hobby that occasionally created a monetary reward if you solved the right one at the right time. Those bizarre events four years ago and the lack of any answers to them were one of if not the biggest puzzle Nabiki hadn't solved yet. In hind sight, the fact that Ranma would be involved somewhere in the first truly bizarre situation of her life should have been expected. Everything strange in Nerima seemed to be connected to Ranma in some way, shape, or form.

Ranma fielded these questions from Furinkan's information broker by holding out his hand. "5000 yen please," was said in a dull tone. However, Ranma's eyes showed just how amused he was to turn the tables on Nabiki for once. A look of utter shock and surprise emerged on middle Tendo sister's face at her usual role and catch phrase being turned against her.

Soun decided to add his two yen by asking a question. "Ranma, how does Flamemon know Anything Goes if neither your father nor I ever taught him?" Inside his mind, the Tendo patriarch was praying that Flamemon wasn't taught by the Master. Having the Master in his house was bad enough. Having an unknown, and therefore possibly corrupted, student of the Master was even worse.

Ranma shrugged his shoulders, "I taught Flamemon the Saotome style of Anything Goes. Even when I was twelve I knew enough to qualify as a Master in the school. I just never knocked Pops out for the title because I figured that most people wouldn't take a teen master of martial arts seriously. Flamemon keeps up his training when I'm not around and when I'm around I show him some new techniques. With his current skill, I'd say he'd give you a hard challenge in his rookie form Pops."

Genma narrowed his eyes on the strange being his son was friends with. On the one hand, he was annoyed that Ranma had taken on his own students without being certified as a master of the school. His school of martial arts was one of the few things Genma took seriously. Anything Goes, especially the Saotome Branch of Anything Goes, didn't have defined ranking system besides master and student. The Tendo Branch had tentatively created a Dan system. However, none of Soun's former students had progressed that far before his wife died leaving Soun unable to teach. This was something that the duo was planning on getting Ranma and Akane to introduce when they started to teach Anything Goes in the dojo after the wedding.

Having Ranma teach someone Anything Goes with him being recognized as being qualified to teach was a major problem. Thanks to the Master, Anything Goes had a poor reputation as a school among the martial arts community. It was feared as the power that it was, but it was also looked down upon as an unsavory school. Even Genma and Soun, fine pillars of martial arts as they were, were tarred with a similar brush as their Master. Ranma was the duo's hope for getting Anything Goes the respect and glory that the style truly deserved among the martial arts community. Teaching someone martial arts without being recognized as having the authority to teach martial arts could lower Ranma in the eyes of the other martial arts masters. That would endanger Ranma's ability to get the school the respect and glory it needed.

On the other hand, Genma and Soun could both read that Flamemon was well trained in the Saotome Branch of Anything Goes. They could also feel the power emanating from Flamemon and knew that he was not a pushover by any stretch of the imagination. There was also the fact that a divine power was involved in this latest debacle. Genma and Soun were well aware thanks to some interesting experiences over the course of their training trip under the Master that messing with any form of divinity was to be done in a delicate manner. Both masters took a few steps back and had an impromptu huddle. Nabiki tried to listen in, but the duo scooted back out of hearing range as the whispered to each other.

Both men made up their minds and nodded their heads. Soun put his hands behind his back and said, "I do not have any problems with a student of Anything Goes staying here while your issues at your home are going on Flamemon. However, both Genma and I have some concerns with your education our school of martial arts. Specifically, we are concerned about the quality of your education since Ranma has never been certified to teach. We are therefore going to put you through an evaluation of your training in Anything Goes. If you pass our evaluation as not having any major flaws then we will grant Ranma a probationary training license. Furthermore, if your skills are sufficient enough we will extend Ranma's probationary training license to cover anyone else needed to help free your homeland."

Soun's face frowned as he tried to appear as a solemn and wise sensei. He then continued, "There will be no major issues for you if you fail the test Flamemon. Genma has agreed to take you on a second student to correct Ranma's mistakes in your training if we find them. However," Soun paused to look Ranma in the eyes, "There will be consequences in this situation for you young man for teaching without proper authority. Teaching Flamemon correctly without a license in order to help fulfill a divine request is a forgivable transgression. Messing up only compounds your error. If Flamemon fails the test, you will be barred from applying for a training license for 5 years and forbidden to challenge any master of Anything Goes for the title of master for a decade. Am I clear Ranma?"

With a casual nod of his head, Ranma answered Soun. "I understand you Mr. Tendo. I just have one question; do you want to test Flamemon in his rookie form or his champion form? As a partnered digimon he can change into different forms that have different levels of power."

The two masters looked at each other in confusion for a second. Neither of them had expected something like this when they cooked up this plan. Genma then shrugged leaving it in Soun's hands. Soun turned back to Ranma and said, "Flamemon may use the form he most feels comfortable in for the test."

Chosen child and partnered digimon turned to look at each other and grinned. Nabiki blinked her eyes as she felt a shiver run down her back. She felt like she had just watched someone get conned and wasn't in for a cut.

* * *

Over in Odaiba, the main group of digidestined in Japan was gathered in T.K.'s partially unpacked apartment around the nest with Gatomon's egg. Kari was sitting on the floor in a rather unladylike manner so that her legs were cradling the nest. The only reason she didn't have the digiegg resting in her lap was that she was too nervous about possibly damaging the egg. Patamon was pacing back and forth on the carpet in front of Kari and the nest like a guardsman out on patrol. Sora, Mimi, and Koushiro were sitting on a sofa with Koushiro balancing his laptop on the armrest. Joe and Yamato were leaning against the wall on either side of the couch. Taichi was standing next to his sister while T.K. sat backwards in a folding chair across from the Yagami siblings.

Kari looked up at T.K. and saw understanding in his eyes. None of the others could truly understand what it was like for a digidestined to have their partner turn into an egg until it happened to them. That wasn't something she would wish on her worst enemy. A question formed in her mind, but she was too afraid to ask it.

T.K. saw the question in her eyes knowing that he had asked the same one four years ago. He sighed and said, "If you keep Gatomon's egg close it should hatch in three days. Normally, it takes a digiegg three months before its ready to hatch. Elecmon told me that the connection we have with our digimon speeds up the development of their egg and fresh stages. Once the egg hatches, it should take Gatomon a week to get back to her in-training level."

Taichi looked down at Patamon and asked, "What happened to you all in the Digital World Patamon? How did you get here without using a digiportal?"

Patamon's right ear twitched and he turned around to face Taichi as he spoke, "I don't know how Gatomon and I got here Tai. One second we were about to be hit by several powerful attacks and the next there was a golden light that sent us to T.K. As for what happened," Patamon paused for a second to collect himself. He then said, "Gatomon, Agumon, Gabumon, and I were hanging out having some fun when a whole bunch of dark rings started to fly in the sky. The rings caught several digimon and these digimon started to attack others."

Koushiro looked up from his computer and said, "That sounds suspiciously like the Black Gears we dealt with when we first got to the Digital World."

The tiny rookie digimon nodded his head and replied, "Gabumon thought the same thing Izzy." Patamon completely missed Koushiro's minor irritation at the use of his old nickname. "We tried to send an email out to inform you all about the dark rings and the attacking digimon. However, I wasn't able to write a message as the stupid monitor was doing updates. Gatomon defended me before we realized we wouldn't be able to get a message out and tried to retreat. She got hit by a sneak attack and was attacked by multiple champions. I tried to get Gatomon away from the attacks and then there was the golden light I mentioned earlier."

Yamato spoke up, "I just hope Gabumon is alright."

Taichi nodded his head adding his two yen, "Agumon as well."

Patamon turned to face the duo and said, "Don't wory Matt and Tai. Gabumon and Agumon were in the thicket providing cover fire for Gatomon and me. I'm sure that they were able to make it to safety. That light should have definitely given them a chance to break away and they had the advantage of being hidden."

Joe spoke up, "Agumon and Gabumon know how to hide when the need to do so. I'm sure they'll be fine and that they'll send a message to us to let us know what's going on when it's safe to do so. We all agreed to do so if we ever get caught in a situation like this again." The idea of sending warning emails to everyone in case something dangerous happened in the Digital World was something Joe had gotten the whole group to agree to years ago to try and assure everyone's safety. Emails were preferred since it was the only means of communication that could reach all digimon and digidestined.

Sora then asked, "Is there a digiport that we can use to go help our friends?" All she could think about in the back of her mind was the thought of Biyomon being attacked. Sora really didn't want the fighting to start up again. However, she was willing to put up with any hardship to see her partner safe and sound.

Koushiro shook his head and said, "I'm afraid not guys. According to the digiport scanner program I've been working on another digiportal won't open up until the first day of school for us."

Mimi let out a small cry of surprise. "What, you mean to tell me that we won't be able to go to the Digital World again until school starts up in two weeks? I was so looking forward to showing Palmon my new school wardrobe lineup. Now I can't see her and she's in danger."

Taichi let out a small chuckle, "Never thought I'd be annoyed that our school district is the last to go back after summer break." That comment caused brief flickers of smiles to appear on everyone's faces for a few second before they disappeared. Taichi looked at Koushiro and asked, "Are there any digiports available besides the one in the middle school computer lab?"

The red haired genius looked up from his computer and said, "Please keep in mind that my digiport scanner is barely out of Alpha testing. I don't have much scanning range with it. However, the only digiport location I've found in the past several days within several blocks of any of our homes is the digiport in the middle school. As I said earlier, that one won't open up again until school starts."

Most of the teens in the group were annoyed to hear that. Having the only digiport they knew of in the middle school was fine when they were in middle school. Now that they were in high school it was a pain in the neck. All of them would have gotten caught trying to sneak to the digiport if they hadn't developed good skills at hiding and sneaking.

Unlike most of the older kids, Taichi had his eyes closed as he considered the situation. He then opened them and said, "I have a plan everyone." The other digidestineds' attention turned to face their leader. Taichi looked at everyone and said, "Until the digiport opens we're going to have to wait. However, that doesn't mean we're useless until summer break is over. All of us need to be on the lookout for reports of something strange happening. Remember, before our adventure there was a lot of weird weather and occasionally a digimon would briefly appear in our world during our adventure. Hopefully, things do get that bad. But, we should be on the lookout just the same."

That got a round of head nods from all the other digidestined in the room. Taichi then continued to give his plan. "Getting back into the digital world is our next step. Kari and T.K. are going to have to go since the digiportal is in their school. T.K. you and Patamon are going to have to play a vital role since you two will be our only major protection until we meet with our partners again." The duo nodded their heads in understanding as they looked at Taichi who continued on talking. "Yamato and I are going to be joining you two. As your older siblings, no one will really question it if we show up to check on how you're doing for your first day of school. We should be able to get one more of us into the school by saying that the person is working on a project or something with either Yamato or I who wanted to check on their sibling first. Having both of us accompanied by someone is possible, but I personally think we're risking drawing questions with too many coincidences."

Joe spoke up, "I think that Taichi's right about only having one other person join him and Yamato in going to the school. This likely isn't something that can be solved in one day. Just having one pair show up day after day shouldn't cause any questions. If any adults ask we can just say that Taichi's or Yamato's parents asked him to look after Kari or T.K. for a bit after school. A school project would be a good cover, but that excludes me since I'm in a different grade level from everyone else."

Yamato nodded his head and said, "One regular person sounds about right. We might be able to sneak additional people in from time to time if the need is desperate. However, I think Taichi should be the partner in this school project. My band occasionally has practice shortly after classes. If I'm the partner in the project or whatever our cover is we'll be down two digidestined instead of just one when that happens."

Taichi nodded his head, "Makes sense to me. Now which of you three are going to be with me on this term project or whatever we call our excuse?" He said this while looking to the couch where the girls and Koushiro were sitting. Joe's reasoning as to why he was a poor choice cover wise made sense to Taichi. Besides, it would be better for the group with the limited numbers they could send to the Digital World to have Joe safe to deliver first aid if something happened.

Sora and Mimi looked at each other, looked at Koushiro who was focused on his computer, looked back at each other, and nodded their heads. Mimi then spoke up, "Koushiro should be the one to go with you Taichi. We can say that the project involves computers and I'm sure that the teachers still remember that Koushiro is a wiz when it comes to computers. Besides, if something comes up that requires brains to solve he's the one to do it."

Koushiro slumped slightly and nodded his head in agreement. He would be able to help the team with his brains if two megas and two ultimate angel type digimons couldn't solve the problem with shear firepower. His computer skills and reputation from when he was at the middle school would help explain why he was messing with any computers in the computer lab.

Taichi smiled and said, "Alright everyone. We've got a game plan on what we'll do until school starts and the digiport opens. We've also got our team picked out once the digiport opens. Can anyone think of anything else we need to discuss at the moment?"

Nancy walked into the room and piped in. "Okay you guys and girls who wants to stay here for dinner? I'm getting ready to order pizza so I need to know how many pizzas to get and what to put on them." That announcement quickly got the complete attention of the six teens, two preteens, and one digimon in the room. Nancy started taking notes and was pleased to see that the kids were able to be regular young adults. She knew that things were going to get risky for the digidestined in the future.

All of the parents were going to do their best to help their children deal with this latest challenge once Nancy got the word out. Why it had to be their children was something none of the group's parents could figure out. However, all of the parents had agreed after their children's last adventure that they would all do what they could to help the kids if they were called again. Everyone had wished that this wouldn't happen, but wishes don't always come true.


	4. Chapter 4

The peaceful dawn at the Tendo dojo was interrupted by a cry of "Baby Salamander" that all of the neighbors could hear. Most of the neighbors simply adjusted their earplugs and returned to dream land. A couple people let out a minor curse to the gods to strike Genma Saotome down. The elder Saotome was no doubt involved in this new battle cry and no one was happy about it. That man really needed to learn some basic consideration for the neighbors. Several people could understand that the man wanted his son to get in martial arts training before school started. However, the noise level Genma's morning spars caused were very disruptive.

If anyone had bothered to look at the Tendo Dojo, they would have seen a panda shaped fireball rocket out of the bedroom window used by the Saotomes and into the koi pond. There was a massive hiss of steam as a third of the water in the pond was converted into steam. Once the steam cleared, Genma could be seen half-buried in the edge of the koi pond holding his chest in pain. Genma winced from the pain and raised his head to make sense of his surroundings.

Flamemon stuck his head out the window and yelled out, "Don't try to attack Ranma again while he's sleeping you jerk. You're lucky I was able to reign in my instincts or you'd be pushing up daisies instead of taking a mud bath. If you want to spar with him you'll have to wait your turn. He's my digidestined so I get first rights to knock his block off in the morning once he wakes up!"

Seconds later, Flamemon was thrown out the window by an irate Ranma who had been woken up by the commotion. The rookie slammed head first into Genma who was trying to stand up knocking both into the koi pond. Ranma hollered out, "Don't yell in the morning Flamemon. I appreciate you watching my back, but you know I can't stay asleep if you raise your voice." Ranma's adventure in the Digital World had taught him to wake up instantly if Flamemon started yelling. That meant that a digimon was about to attack.

A barbell blindsided Ranma knocking him out of the dojo and towards the koi pond. Both Genma and Flamemon tried to dodge Ranma. However, the duo tripped each other up and Ranma with the barbell collided with them in the still steamy pond. Akane let a sniff out as she closed her window and got ready for the day. How could a girl get her beauty sleep with the Saotomes and the pyromaniac causing such a ruckus?

Unwanted, a shiver ran up Akane's spine as she recalled the beat down Agunimon had delivered to her father last night. It had been a fast, harsh, and utterly ruthless match on Agunimon's end that left her father having to be bandaged like a mummy to hide all of the burns and bruises. It also drove home to her what Ranma meant when he insulted her by saying her fighting skills were only average for a rookie. He had been speaking about a rookie level digimon instead of a beginner.

This point had been driven even further home when Ranma had sparing matches with his partner as Flamemon and Agunimon to showcase the digimon's skill. Both had boasted that Flamemon's abilities were in the upper percentages of fighting potential in all his forms. The power that digimon commanded was rather frightening for Akane. She had worked hard for years only to reach a level of ability that was regarded by digimon as only average for a child.

What made Akane even more uneasy about Agunimon's beat down of her father was the subsequent display of skill and power by Ranma. Akane wouldn't consciously admit it, but she was terrified by the fact that Ranma eclipsed her in strength and skill. She still had mental scars from the antics of Kuno and dealing with his hentai horde for almost a year. The thought of a boy overpowering her and taking what he wanted from her without any regard for her wishes was always present in Akane's mind. It gnawed at her every time she talked to men or boys she hadn't known as safe since childhood like her father or Dr. Tofu. A major problem Akane had with the engagement with Ranma was the fact that in her mind her father and sisters had handed her over to someone who could take what he wanted from her at any time with their full support. All too often, the youngest Tendo's sleep had been plagued by nightmares of Ranma raping her. Another shiver ran down Akane's spine as the unwanted memory of her latest nightmare featuring Genma, her sisters, and her father holding her down so that Ranma could "Unite the Schools" came unsummoned.

In her heart, Akane knew that Ranma would never do such a thing. She could admit in her mind to herself that her unwanted fiancé was too noble to treat her like that. Hell, with his curse Ranma could understand her fears better than any boy her age that she knew. An outside observer would have noted that Akane's issues with the engagement would have been fixed if Akane and Ranma were given sufficient time to know each other in a supportive and comfortable environment. Ranma had his own issues which were mainly focused around his poor social interaction skills. His issues were just far easier, quicker, and required less delicate handling to correct than Akane's did.

Such an observer did not exist and such sound advice would likely be impossible to implement. Soun and Genma were too wrapped up in their wish to join their families and desire to see it happen to give Ranma and Akane the space they needed. Genma's poor judgement regarding marriage promises added to the tension. The usual zany misadventures kept the tension on a slow boil. To top everything off, Happosai and his 'antics' constantly reinforced Akane's fears regarding boys and what they would do to her if they were stronger than her. Akane's blow ups and attacks on Ranma, while unfortunate for the young man/woman, allowed the youngest Tendo to release some of the fear and rage building in her before she had a complete breakdown.

Akane got dressed in her jogging outfit and headed downstairs. She could hear the start of a three way spar in the backyard as she exited the house. The youngest Tendo sister had a standard route that she always went on when she jogged in the mornings. It was a familiar route that she had jogged on for years. Akane would occasionally nod her head to some of the older residents who were outside for one reason or another. The ones who saw Akane's nod would give her a polite nod in return. After a twenty minute run, Akane returned to the Tendo dojo ready to face the organized chaos that was breakfast.

* * *

Flamemon joined Ranma up on the fence as the trio headed to Furinkan High. There was no way that Flamemon was going to let Ranma be by himself for hours on end. Besides, the digiportal was in the high school so he had to be there for Ranma and him to return to the Digital World. Several of the citizens passing by gave the digimon a weird look before deciding it was better to not ask any questions. Best not to poke around something strange that was next to Ranma Saotome.

The trio rounded a corner and arrived at Furinkan with plenty of time to spare. This time was needed because the resident self-important idiot spotted Ranma and Flamemon. "Halt," a voice called out which everyone in school quickly identified as belonging to Tatewaki Kuno. The upperclassman had his bokken out pointed at Flamemon. "You go too far Saotome. Is it not bad enough that we must tolerate the pollution of this sacred institution of learning with you mere presence? Now you drop all pretense of disguising that you are a sorcerer by bringing your demonic familiar here as well!"

Several ears perked up when they heard something different from the usual variations in Kuno's almost daily rant against Ranma. A couple of students turned their heads to look at Ranma and were surprised to see Flamemon. These students quickly got the attention of their friends who quickly joined in observing the upcoming show down. Furinkan students were an exception to the usual rule of people trying to ignore the weird things that happened around Ranma. The students paid close attention so they'd know who not to piss off and how to best avoid the fallout of anyone trying to fight Ranma. One needed to know if it was better to duck, dodge, or run away from possible bodily harm with so many high powered martial artists fighting.

Ranma rolled his eyes and shot back, "Wrong again as usual blunder." The young martial artist turned to his friend and said, "You want to correct the fool's delusions or should I do it Flamemon?"

Flamemon rolled his head and said, "Let me handle this partner." He took a step forward and spoke in a completely neutral voice, "Alright lame brain, since you're the village idiot I'll speak slowly and simply so that your mind can understand. I am a digimon a being who usually lives in another world. Ranma is my digidestined partner chosen for me by one of the gods of my world to help defend my world. Now, you have ten seconds once I've finished speaking to get on your knees and beg for forgiveness before I destroy your stick and break your arms. If you try one of your stupid attacks in the face of my generous offer than I will break your back so that you'll be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Don't tempt me on this because I will follow through with my promise."

Many of the students pulled back in fear when they heard Flamemon's proclamation. Part of it was because some students didn't want to annoy someone chosen by a foreign god. There were already rumors floating around school that Ranma was the secret devotee to some sort of deity of chaos. One also had to consider that a religious connection had to come up eventually in the rotation of bizarre reasons for strange visitors coming for Ranma.

However, most of the students pulled back out of a sense of self-preservation. Anyone making threats of bodily harm was taken seriously by the students. Shampoo and especially Ryoga had proven that debris could fly in a fight. Flamemon's threat and the manner he delivered it sent shivers down many students' backs. It wasn't the usual rage fueled manner they were used to hearing such threats leaving one to wonder if the speaker even realized what they were saying. Flamemon had been perfectly clear and completely calm as he spoke showing that he was fully aware of what he was saying. The regular students could also sense that he was willing and able to back up what he was saying.

Nabiki opened a window from the second story of Furinkan High and yelled out at the top of her lungs. "He's not joking Kuno! Flamemon is on a completely higher level than you and he's currently only relaxing. If Ranma lets Flamemon get serious than he could kill you. Swallow your pride and back down!" Nabiki had watched Flamemon's beat down of father just like everyone else at the dojo. She had also paid close attention when the digimon and Ranma talked about their past together and was able to read between the lines when the duo tried to gloss over some details. Nabiki had figured out that the duo's battles in the Digital World were lethal for the combatants instead of just property destructive like the previous battles in Nerima. There was no way she could hope to fleece Kuno of money if he was crippled or dead.

Hearing Nabiki's call strengthened Kuno's survival instinct enough to shut down Kuno's higher brain functions. While everyone tried figure out what going to do, Flamemon could be heard steadily counting. "8, 9, and 10 seconds," the digimon took a look at the confused village idiot and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I don't have my apology so that one lost bokken and two broken arms for Kuno." Flamemon activated his baby salamander attack creating an aura of fire around his body and rushed at the still puzzled Kuno.

The digimon ran one of his hands along the length of the bokken blade setting it on fire. Flamemon canceled his baby salamander attack just as he was about to reach the hilt of the bokken. He knocked Kuno's wrists to force the shocked teen's arms apart and cause him to drop the burning bokken. Half a second later, the digimon grabbed kuno's arms near his ulnar bones and pressed down hard enough to cause everyone nearby to hear twin snaps. Half a second later Kuno let out an unholy scream of agony.

Flamemon stepped away from Kuno who curled up into a screaming crying ball on pathway to the school. The digimon looked around at the shocked students and said, "Why are you all so shocked that this bully was given a taste of his own medicine? This buffoon used the threat of violence to cause a crowd of people to attack Miss Tendo for a year. He constantly attacks my digidestined Ranma while spouting lies about Ranma's character and threatening to smite him. Had he been a fellow digimon threatening Ranma I would have killed him already. However, since humans aren't automatically reborn like digimon are after deletion I spared him."

Hiroshi and Daisuke nervously walked over to Ranma and Hiroshi asked, "Is your friend serious Ranma?"

Ranma turned to look at his school buddies and casually nodded his head. "Both Flamemon and I have deleted our own share of rogue digimon. It's not something we're proud or happy to have done. However, it was something that was necessary to do." What really drove what Ranma was saying home to those who could hear him was the calm lack of emotion Ranma told them this. There was not even a shred of cockiness that would have been expected if he had been bragging or exaggerating things. There also wasn't the usual nervousness that happened whenever Ranma tried to lie.

The digidestined teen walked over to Kuno and picked the crying upperclassman up. He then sighed and said, "Okay Kuno. Let's get you to the school nurse so that those breaks can be treated."

* * *

T.K., Patamon, and Kari were sitting in Kari's bedroom next to the nest Kari had created for her digiegg with the door wide open. Patamon was sitting next to the nest doing his impression of a guard hamster. Kari had her D-terminal out and was rapidly typing in notes as T.K. went over his knowledge of baby digimon care. The girl looked at her friend and asked, "So is it fish in particular that baby digimon need to eat or is it simply protein?"

The blond haired digidestined thought about the question and said, "I think it's just the protein and the fish was simply the closest source Elecmon could get to since he didn't want to leave the baby digimon alone. You might want to stick to feeding Gatomon meat when she hatches. Last year, my science teacher mentioned something about how veggies didn't have everything that meat does when it comes to proteins."

Kari nodded her head and replied, "Sounds good to me T.K. I think you're right about the meat. I overheard mom mentioning something about needed to get the right portions of different veggies to make up for a lack of meat several times when she was on her vegetarian diet kick." Kari shivered slightly as she recalled some of the particularly gross meals her mother had tried to serve at that time. She loved tofu before then and afterwards she could barely stand the taste of it for months. Why did her mother have to have the weirdest tastes and poorest abilities as a cook compared to all other mothers on the block?

Said mother was listening in on T.K. and Kari's conversation from the kitchen. Yuuko penciled in some fish to the weekly shopping list and continued to work on the new fungus recipe she had found in a health food magazine. She held back a sigh as she wished she could do something to help her Little Light deal with Gatomon's temporary loss.

Being a mother of two digidestined was not easy. Yuuko had to worry about her kids spending time in a completely different world where she couldn't get to if they needed help or her children being called upon to fight some evil threatening two worlds. That was on top of the worries any mother had for her children. Part of Yuuko wished that Taichi and Kari had never met their digimon partners so they could be safe at home. The rest of her felt guilty for wishing that. Agumon and Gatomon were like the other halves of Taichi and Kari bringing the best out of her children. Besides, her children had made wonderful friends with deep bonds thanks to the digimon. She just had to accept the good with the bad.

The phone on the counter started to ring and Yuuko quickly picked up and said, "Hello, this is the Yagami residence Mrs. Yagami speaking. May I ask who is calling?"

From the speaker she heard the reply, "its Hiroaki Ishida. I've found something or rather, someone, who'd make a good ninth candidate for our kids' summer camping group."

Yuuko's eyes widened when she heard Hiroaki say that. All of the parents had agreed that 'summer camping group' would be their code phrase to signal something relating to digimon and their children's status as digidestined. She replied, "Really? Is the candidate someone we know?"

Hiroaki quickly answered, "I doubt it. This candidate is currently living in Nerima and is around Yamato and Taichi's age. Found out about it because one of our amateur reporters was in the area reporting on some of the strange things that happen in the area. He took a few pictures of the ninth candidate and the teen's pet as part of his report and sent in everything involving an incident this morning. The amateur needs to learn a bit more discretion in picking news stories. Had the editor seen it then the kid would have gotten black balled from the industry thinking the kid was insane or trying to turn us into a tabloid."

"Yuuko, could you please call the other parents and arrange for all of us and the kids to meet soon? I would make the calls, but I've got several things that have to get done before the evening news. I don't want the kids to go looking for the new kid without you, myself, and the other parents agreeing that this is a good thing. Nerima is on the other side of the Special Wards. Furthermore, there are a lot of very uncomfortable rumors coming out that part of Nerima suggesting that it could be a rough place."

A frown appeared on Yuuko's face when she heard that. She then slumped slightly in resignation and said, "Okay. I'll call the other parents and then I'll call you with the meeting time. Try to be there on time."

Hiroaki's eyes widened in surprise on the other end of the line and then he said, "Hey! I'll let you know that I'm excellent at making all appointments on time."

"That's not what Nancy told me earlier when she dropped T.K. off to visit with Kari."

Mentions of his ex-wife left Hiroaki rather nervous. There was also the fact that Nancy knew he had a tendency to be late to anything that was not related to work. He then said, "Okay, I look forward to the call. If I'm not at my desk just leave a message on my answering machine and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Yuuko smiled and said, "Have a good day and I'll call you to let you know about the meeting time. Goodbye." She then hung up the phone and thought about who to call first. Rounding up everyone on such short notice was going to be a bit of a headache. Hopefully, it wouldn't take them too long to get everyone to the meeting. Part of Yuuko hoped that there was a ninth child since extra help would mean less of a chance of her kids or their friends being hurt. Another part of her worried what kind of danger was coming their way that so many digidestined were needed to stop.

* * *

Two days later, T.K. with Patamon resting on his head was walking down the streets of Nerima. Last night, all of the parents and the digidestined had a big meeting over at Joe's house to discuss what they should do about the just discovered ninth digidestined. After much debate, and extreme disapproval from Yamato and Hiroaki, it was agreed that T.K. and Patamon should try to contact Ranma Saotome by themselves. After all, they were the only digidestined-digimon team the group had on earth at the moment. Bringing a large group could cause Ranma to become skittish and would draw unwanted attention. Given that Ranma was supposedly the center of everything crazy in Nerima, drawing more attention to the group was the last thing they wanted.

Hiroaki had raided the vault, an informal description for a section of the news station's archives where all of the crazy or inconvenient facts for scuttled news reports were kept. After all, one never knew when some politician or other important person would annoy the editor and there would be a need for some investigative reporting to turn up those facts. Hiroaki used his access to copy all of the recent bizarre incidents in Nerima and had found out far more than he expected. The information was presented at the parent-digidestined meeting and it caused everyone's eyebrows to rise in surprise.

T.K. had thought that bizarre things only happened in the Digital World, but the hidden news stories proved that the bizarre was just as at home on Earth as it was in the Digital World. In the past half hour he and Patamon had watched a teen with purple hair ride a bicycle on a fence, a martial arts battle between two teams of construction workers, and an old man with a massive bag being chased by enraged ladies. What really surprised the duo was how casual everyone in Nerima seemed to be to these antics. The preteen came to a corner and paused to check the map of Nerima he had before continuing on to his destination. After a few more minutes of walking, T.K. and Patamon reached the front door of the Tendo dojo. The blond put away his map and took a deep breath to calm his nerves before he rang the doorbell.

Kasumi opened the door a few seconds later and blinked her eyes in surprise when she saw T.K. and more importantly, Patamon on T.K.'s head. She bowed her head politely and said, "Hello and good afternoon. My name is Kasumi Tendo. Can I help you?"

T.K. returned the bow and answered, "Yes ma'am. My name is T.K. Takashi. I was wondering if this was the Tendo Dojo and if someone by the name of Ranma Saotome was staying here? I have some questions regarding a place that I was informed he might have visited a few years ago."

Now this was a bit of a surprise for Kasumi. She was familiar with martial arts rivals showing up to challenge the dojo and/or Ranma. However, T.K. looked too young and didn't have the right build for a martial artist. His questioning was also too polite and seemed to be focused on a location instead of on Ranma himself for the kid's question to be related to a family member that had been accidentally promised something by Genma. The little creature sitting on T.K.'s head carefully trying to not reveal that it was alive clinched the deal for Kasumi. She nodded her head and said, "This is the Tendo Dojo and Ranma Saotome does stay here. In fact, Ranma should be in the dojo training. Would you like to come in so that you can talk to him?"

T.K. bowed again and said, "Thank Ms. Tendo."

Kasumi stepped aside so that T.K. could come into the house. She pointed to the shoe rack and said, "Please just call me Kasumi." T.K. nodded his head careful to not cause Patamon any real trouble and then took his shoes off. Once his shoes were in the rack, Kasumi quickly lead the young digidestined through the house and out the short paved path to the dojo.

As the duo approached, they heard a feminine voice yell out "Tempest Twist!" A second later there was a thud and the same voice let out an "urmf" of annoyance.

T.K. was confused and Kasumi had to hold back a smile as a male voice called out, "Focus Kazemon, focus. You may be the same general size as you are when you're Agunimon, but you're proportions are completely different! Your legs and arms are a couple cm shorter and your balance is not where you're used to thanks to those wings and boobs your armor form has. It's just like when you became Vritramon or Aldamon. Start from the basics and refine things so that you can use your skills in your new form to their fullest potential."

Kasumi knocked twice on the door and then opened the dojo's door. She, T.K., and Patamon gazed into the dojo where Ranma was standing over a face down Kazemon that had just been thrown to the floor. Ranma and Kazemon turned their heads to see the trio and both said at the same time, "Good afternoon Kasumi. Who are the guests?"

Before Kasumi could say anything, Kazemon took the opportunity to dedigivolve causing a dull red beam of light to shoot out of the fairy like digimon and into Ranma's digivice. T.K. and Patamon both opened their mouths slightly in surprise in seeing a digimon digivolve like Kazemon did back into Flamemon. Ranma turned his head back around to face Flamemon and said, "And just what do you think you're doing? I guess you forgot that we're supposed to be training you to get used to your Armor form."

Flamemon rolled his eyes and shot back, "The stupid digimental only had four minutes left to its charge and we have guests. The only way I'm staying in my armor form to hold a casual conversation with a previously unmeet digidestined is if you agree to change into your curse form and dress up in a playboy bunny outfit." Flamemon paused to sniff the air and stare at T.K. for a moment. His eyes widen in surprise and said, "Well I'll be. It seems we actually are meeting another Chosen Child instead of just another Digidestined."

Patamon decided that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, stretched his ears out, and gently took off from T.K.'s head. Kasumi was a little surprise to see the little orange digimon fly in a lazy manner for a few seconds to get all of the kinks out from having to play stuffed animal for so long. Patamon landed on his hind legs in front of Flamemon and said, "What do you mean meeting another digidestined? None of the other kids or their partners ever knew you two existed until T.K.'s dad found some information on you from someone reporting about Nerima trying to get onto the news. We called Gennai and he apparently didn't know about a ninth digidestined until recently."

Ranma pulled at the chain around his neck to reveal his Crest to Patamon and T.K. who both widened their eyes in surprise at seeing an intact Crest again. He then said, "I guess that confirms that you guys are actually a Chosen Child and his partner if you can recognize a crest by sight. Not that I doubt Flamemon's ability to sense that sort of thing up close. It's just that, your crest isn't emitting like an active Crest should and you don't seem to have the skill of a high level martial artist to control your chi which would be necessary to control the energy of your crest."

T.K. looked down and his cheeks got a faint dusting of pink to them. The loss of his physical Crest was something that T.K. and the other digidestined in his group never liked. He tried to get things back on track by asking, "So Ranma, why didn't Gennai know about you until recently? I know he's not infallible or all knowing, but he is very knowledgeable about the Digitial World."

With a shrug of his shoulders, Ranma answered T.K. "I don't know Gennai so I can't say why he particularly didn't know about me for a while. Sounds like he might be a member of the Agents, but I haven't had much interaction with them over the years. I was discovered to be a digidestined and more particularly a Chosen Child by their boss and directly work a little higher on the proverbial food chain. From what I was told, I was never discovered by the Agents because only like 1 in a million humans can become digidestined and of those digidestined less than 1 percent have Crests to become Chosen Children. From what I was told, they never tried to look for another Chosen Child after they found your large group. After all, they had basically gotten the biggest jackpot in the history of lotteries in their laps and they weren't going to question their good luck. Boss knew that there were two more Chosen Children besides the group the Agents found and he enlisted Kenny and me to help."

Flamemon then jumped in and said, "Each digidestined and Chosen Child had their role to bring balance back to the Digital World four years ago. The regular digidestined kept the forces of darkness from consolidating and strengthening their position. Basically, they acted like gruella fighters in an occupied country. Ranma and Ken with me and Ken's partner Wormmon disrupted the Dark Masters plans almost like Special Forces do for human military forces. You and your group of Chosen Children were basically like the regular Army sent in to smash the enemy. After all, several megas and ultimates with a few of the ultimates being angel-types is a massive force."

T.K. and Patamon blushed at the comment of the ultimate angel-types. However, a question came to T.K. "Ranma, who is Ken?"

Without thinking Ranma replied, "Kenny is a friend, practically my adopted little brother, who I met in the Digital World years ago. We met several digidestined together, but we were the only Chosen." Ranma stopped talking as some facts caught up with his mind. T.K. didn't know who Kenny was. T.K. called him the ninth digidestined and didn't seem to know about the digidestined spread around the world. Huanglongmon had said that there were only 10 Chosen Children. One of the Chosen Children had been corrupted to become the Digimon Emperor. All of these facts were adding up to a possibility that made Ranma sick to his stomach.


	5. Chapter 5

Ranma forced himself to not focus on the horrifying thought that had popped into his mind. One of T.K.'s friends could actually be the Emperor and was playing the others for fools. There could have been an 11th Chosen Child operating on the other side of the planet that Huanglongmon had kept quiet about for security reasons who had been corrupted. Until Ranma physically meet the so called Digimon Emperor and saw who he was, then the possibility of Kenny being his enemy was not acceptable. Surely his luck in having friends from his training trip turn into enemies here in Nerima wasn't that shitty! Murphy had to run out of crap to dump on him sooner or later since he already had to put up with an industrial fertilizer complex worth of crud.

Flamemon took a step closer to Patamon and asked, "So you two found us and have learned that more people can go to the Digital World besides your little group. Is there any other reason why you came looking for us? If there isn't, can you please leave? I may not like that stupid Armor form, but I need to master it if Ranma and I are to take care of that idiot messing things up in the Digital World."

Both T.K. and Patamon instantly focused on Flamemon and blurted out at the same time, "You know what's causing the problems in the Digital World?!" Both Chosen Child and partnered digimon then bowed their head in apology. T.K. then spoke up for both of them. "Sorry about that outburst. It's just that something really bad happened to one of our friends and we haven't gotten any real info on what's going on in the Digital World."

Ranma grimaced and in spoke in a firm manner that was more serious than Kasumi had ever seen from Ranma before. "Am I correct in guessing that this really bad thing was one of your friends' digimon partners being reverted into a digiegg? The boss told me about it which is why I pulled Flamemon here from his usual haunts in the Digital World to be here with me. My life in Nerima might be crazy even for those of us used to the Digital World, but here I can keep him safer than he would be by himself."

There was a pause for a moment before Ranma continued, "Our current threat is a corrupted Chosen Child that is being influenced to enslave digimon. This child is calling himself the Digimon Emperor and has the power to prevent normal digivolution. Boss found a work around this little trick of the Digimon Emperor's by using an archaic digivolving method known as Armor Digivolution. Most digimon can't Armor Digivolve and the method has its limitations which is why I've been training Flamemon here in how to use his Armor form before we go fight the Digimon Emperor."

Flamemon cut in at this point still smarting over his status as Kazemon. "Still sucks that I had to trade my ability to go Ultimate in order for the Boss to modify my code to enable Armor Digivolution." Flamemon paused in his gripping, he could still complain about what he had to do to do his duty, to bring his senses to focus on Patamon. There was a puzzled look on his face for a few seconds and then a frown appeared on his face. Flamemon then asked, "Okay, I already said why I had to give up my ability to go Ultimate. What made you give it up Patamon?"

Patamon blinked his eyes in surprise. "Huh? What do you mean Flamemon? I haven't given up the ability to go Ultimate."

The hot headed rookie narrowed his eyes and said, "Don't give me that load of crap Patamon! My senses are very good at detecting energy flows and I'm extremely well trained in the more esoteric aspects of martial arts. I can sense that your ability to handle large amounts of energy needed for the higher digivolution levels has atrophied. Then there's your partner's Crest to consider which seems to be in a state of rest even though it's absolutely enormous. The only other person I've ever sense with a Crest grown to such a powerful state is Ranma's, but his is in an active state even if I currently can't use his Crest's power."

Both Patamon and T.K. looked at each other in confusion as neither of them were entirely sure about everything Flamemon was saying. T.K. then said, "I'm not sure what you mean by all of that Flamemon. We just haven't had the need for Patamon to digivolve to Magnaangemon since we helped to save the Digital World four years ago. Now that I think of it, none of the others ever mentioned having to have their partners' digivolve to their Ultimate levels since then either."

Kasumi watched as Ranma brought his hands to his forehead and started to massage his scalp in pure aggravation. He then hissed out in an aggravated manner, "You mean to tell me that eight Chosen Children, the very backbone to the possible survival of the Digital World and Earth in times of crises, have been letting their skills go for the past four years? What the freaking hell is wrong with you and your friends!"

That was more foul language than Kasumi was comfortable with and she put her foot down with a firm frown on her face. "Ranma, that is completely uncalled for. Please apologize to our guests."

Flamemon leaped to Ranma's defense. "Actually Kasumi, my partner is understating just how big of a problem this is. Both the Digital World and Earth are connected. If real problems start happening in one world than problems will start occurring in the other one. Digidestined are responsible for helping to maintain the balance between the worlds and protect them by dealing with threats emerging from the Digital World. Chosen Children are an even more important subset of Digidestined. A little less than one in a million humans can be a Digidestined and less than one percent of all Digidestined in the world are Chosen Children. Only Chosen Children can normally enable their digimon partners to achieve the Ultimate or Mega level stage."

A frown appeared on Flamemon's face as he looked at Patamon in annoyance, "Digimon and humans are more similar than our initial appearances suggest. One of the ways we're alike is that both digimon and humans need to constantly train and stay conditioned or their physical abilities degrade. I've currently lost the ability to go Mega thanks to Genma's practically trademarked level of stupidity messing with Ranma and me. I also had to give up the ability to go Ultimate like I said earlier. However, you and your friends lost the ability to go Ultimate and Mega through sheer laziness. We are in the opening round of another fight for the possible survival of both worlds and we're at a serious handicap thanks to T.K., Patamon, and their friends shirking their responsibilities. As the Chosen Child and the partnered digimon of Duty, Ranma and I have the right to be fuming about this mess."

Patamon huffed and said, "I'll show you Flamemon! T.K. lets show this jerk that we're not lazy!" There was a bleep from T.K.'s digivice as Patamon started to draw on the power needed to digivolve. "Patamon digivolve to Angemon. Angemon digivolve to, not Magnaangemon." The glow of digivolution vanished to reveal a shocked six winged six foot tall angel standing in front of the dojo. Angemon looked down at his hands in disbelief. "I don't understand."

Flamemon walked over to Angemon with a smug look on his face. "It's as I told you Angemon. You and your partner have become weak in these times of peace. The defeat of the Dark Masters was not an end to darkness or even threats to the Digital World. It was a welcome rest between conflicts and a time to relax. However, times of peace are not times to become lazy or to weaken one's ability to fight. The peace we fought so hard for is ending and even if we find a way to allow normal digivolution in the enemy areas, we will be hampered by the lack of Ultimates and Megas to end this new conflict quickly."

The hot headed rookie turned to Ranma and said, "Charge me partner. I want to see just how much Angemon here has lost his fighting instincts."

Ranma channeled his chi into his D3 without a second thought and said, "Use the dojo. Just don't wreck the place. The warehouse doesn't get its lumber shipment until Tuesday."

The now Agunimon nodded his head and grabbed Angemon to chuck him into the dojo. All the humans watched as Agunimon dashed into the dojo with a grin on his face and closed the door behind him. Agunimon called out seconds later, "Your guard has holes in it Angemon. Just because we have special attacks as digimon doesn't mean we have to use them in a fight." The dojo door's integrity was tested as Angemon was thrown into it from the rattling of the door.

Ranma turned to T.K. and said, "I think our partners are going to be busy for a while. Why don't we go inside and talk about what we both know about how things are in the Digital World and what we're each planning on doing about it."

T.K. nodded his head and said, "I think that would be a good idea."

* * *

The meeting between Ranma and T.K. didn't take too long since neither of the two chosen had much to add to the other one's knowledge about the current situation in the Digital World. Ranma had the current enemy's title and knowledge of a trick he had while T.K. knew more about a battle tactic of the Digimon Emperor. They shared contact information and then T.K. headed out with a very sore Patamon. Flamemon and Ranma waved good bye as T.K. carried his partner to the train station.

Once T.K. was out of ear shot Ranma asked, "So how bad was Angemon?"

Flamemon shrugged his shoulders and said, "Pretty rusty, but I knocked a good deal of it loose. Don't be too surprised if we start hearing of angel sightings in their district soon. I got the distinct impression that Patamon doesn't like that his skills have degraded and wants to correct that now that he's aware it happened."

Ranma looked down at his partner and raised his eyebrow in surprise. "Really, he and T.K. didn't seem to place a lot of pride in their fighting abilities."

The digimon shook his head once and said, "Patamon doesn't have of fighter's pride like you and I Ranma. He does have a deep desire to protect those people he cares about. He'll want to recover his abilities so he can better protect those he wants to protect."

Flamemon paused for a moment and then asked, "Ranma, didn't the Boss state that T.K.'s group had two Megas and two angel type Ultimates against the Dark Masters?"

"Yes, T.K. also confirmed it when we talked while you were sparing with Angemon."

A frown appeared on Flamemon's face. "Something isn't adding up Ranma. I wasn't joking earlier when I said that T.K.'s crest had grown to state like yours even if it's currently in a resting state. Judging from the size of the crest, Patamon should have had a mega state. Hell, your crest produced a smaller well of power than T.K.'s could if was on when I first became Aldamon. I also sensed something that I can best describe as a slumbering parasite on his crest. Wish I could describe what I felt better, but I've never felt something like that before."

Ranma made a mental note to ask the Boss about what Flamemon mentioned to him at another time. He then let out a sigh of resignation and prepared to set off a riot once everyone else in Nerima found out what he was about to do. "Follow me Flamemon. We need to go somewhere." Ranma jumped onto a nearby roof and his partner followed him two seconds later. A trash bag of gutter leaves later and the duo were in front of the Cat Café.

The duo entered the café after Ranma calmly putting the trash in the trash canister in the side alley. Several of the regular customers spotted Ranma as he walked in the door and started to eat a little faster while keeping an eye out for flying weapons. They knew that Ranma wouldn't start a problem, but he would be the motivation for some reason or another for a problem.

Cologne glanced up from her spot at the cash register to look at her new customers and her eyes narrowed when she spotted Ranma and Flamemon. The digimon's existence and his connection to Ranma was very concerning for the Amazon elder. Part of it was because Flamemon represented many unknowns about Ranma and major unknowns could have an adverse effect on her dear great-granddaughter's efforts to make Ranma see the validity of their marriage. Cologne previously had thought she had an understanding of who Ranma was as a person and what his drives were. She had been planning on talking to Shampoo about how she could better court Ranma with that insight. Flamemon showed that Ranma had different priorities and drives than she thought he did.

Another reason Cologne was uncomfortable with Flamemon is that his connection to Ranma reminded her of pacts enemies of the Amazons had made with evil spirits. The trouble and suffering those enemies caused made many Amazons, particularly the older Amazons, suspicious of anything resembling those pacts. Cologne could see that digimon in general and Flamemon in particular were not evil spirits. But, how would it look to one of her rivals in second hand reports over a thousand miles away? Who would want to misconstrue the facts to attack Cologne or Shampoo and just how easy would that be in Ranma's situation?

Cologne was not fooled into thinking her position and standing back home was unassailable. She was one of the stronger, but not quite a major, member of the Conciliatory Coalition on the Elder Council. With the Traditionalists help, the Conciliatory Coalition was able to keep a lid on the hot heads of the council and maintain the Amazons subservient, but distant and loose, position with Beijing. Despite the Amazons' pride, training, and techniques they had never been more than a minor power in the region outside the Jusenkyo Valley. The Amazons never got a population mass large enough to project their power. Quality they had in spades, but it was futile to have a warrior who could defeat one hundred enemies if your enemy could bring a thousand warriors for each of yours.

Successive dynasties and now the Communists in China had found it more useful to have the Amazons as weakly controlled vassals than to pay the likely ruinous costs to bring the Amazons into full subservience. Granted that cost had gone down thanks to technology, but the current arrangement was useful enough for China's leaders. The Amazons provided a traditional tribute of silver, rare teas, and a small trickle of young Amazons to act as hidden bodyguards for important persons in the government. No one expected an aging official's eye candy secretary or maid to be able to kill a dozen would be assassins in under a minute. Occasionally, an Amazon decided to take her charge on as a lover and a child would be born. While officially unrecognized, these blood ties helped to secure the connection between the Amazon and Chinese leadership.

In exchange for these goods and services, the Amazons were left alone to rule their little corner of the world as they saw fit. They also got access to trade with China and through China the world at large. It was a good deal for the Amazons as it allowed them to maintain their culture and identity for thousands of years. Most other ethnic groups that had formed at the same time as the Amazons had been whipped out or absorbed into other groups over the course of history. The rare times the deal broke down, usually when dynasties were overthrown, had proven that the Amazons needed the deal. Historical records showed that while the Amazons won the initial battles, they would never have been able to win the war if they fought to the bitter end.

Sadly, there were those who hadn't been paying attention in history class sitting on the Elder Council. Those idiots thought that the first initial victories were signs that the Amazons could conquer all with their techniques and training. The fact that those battles had been between equal or only slightly outnumbered Amazons slipped their minds. Technological progress also had slipped those fools thoughts. Cologne wasn't about to try taking an armor piercing round with her skin after the Boxers proved that Bakusai Tenketsu training could fail against high powered rifles almost a century ago. But, it was those same idiots who would use Ranma's connection to Flamemon to try and hurt her position and in turn the safety of the Amazon people. If those morons ever got too much traction in the council and Beijing hear their saber rattling. Cologne's mind conjured images of and Amazon barbecue and a dozen other ways that her people's 3000 year history could meet a grisly end.

With her eyes focused on Ranma Cologne said, "Good afternoon Son-in-Law. Is there something I can help you with today or do you want to wait and visit your wife?"

Ranma rolled his eyes and said, "I don't have time to go into this old song and dance Cologne."

Said Amazon was surprised to hear Ranma call her by her name instead of his usual derogatory nickname. It still was rude of him to just address her by name even if he was her great-grandson-in-law. Cologne inquired, "So why have you come here Ranma?"

There was serious tone in Ranma's voice as he said, "I just got in contact with the main group of digidestined in Japan who also happen to be Chosen Children like me. They've let their skills degrade over the past four years and now their digimon partners are only able to reach a fraction of their old strength." For a second there was a pause as if Ranma was swallowing something particularly vile before he spoke again. "I need help training both the kids and the digimon back to fighting form for when I find a way to stop the Digital World's current enemy from blocking normal digivolution."

Several nearby patrons started to slap yen notes onto their tables and head to the door when they heard what Ranma said. Cologne's eyes bulged out in surprise at hearing that from her prideful son-in-law. She recovered a second later and frowned as she narrowed her eyes. This was very serious if Ranma was swallowing his pride to ask for help. Cologne could see why Ranma came to her given his options of experience trainers. Soun was too emotional to help and she wouldn't stick anyone with Genma or Happosai as their teacher.

Part of Cologne was worried about the problems her help could cause her. The Amazons generally liked to keep their techniques away from outsiders. Teaching Ranma wasn't a problem since he was Shampoo's husband even if he didn't want to admit it. Teaching Ryoga, an already accomplished martial artist and possible consideration for a husband quest, a technique the Amazons learn from another group and that could still be learn elsewhere was okay. Teaching a bunch of outsiders with no current connection to the Amazons and who could be argued to be demon summoners? That was a massive potential problem for her if word got home.

On the other hand, the digidestined were favored by a deity of some sort who from what little she had heard through the grapevine was a benevolent deity. Helping out a deity's favored was a good way to earn that deity's help. Even if this deity wasn't normally benevolent, the uncaring deities typically didn't go out of their way to harm someone who helped them which could be almost as good as a blessing. Cologne had also found out about the mysterious attacks on Tokyo four years ago from Nabiki who recently learned that they were stopped by the digidestined.

The fact that warriors of Ranma's caliber were still low on the digimon scale of power while Ranma, much as she wouldn't admit it, was at the higher end of what a regular human could do made up Cologne's mind. With a sigh she said, "I'll help train these other digidestined in some basic martial arts if you can get them to come over here. I won't teach them anything exclusive to the Amazons. However, I can help teach the basics and teach you how to teach them."

Ranma bowed his head and said, "Thanks for helping me with this Cologne. It really means a lot to me."

* * *

At the same time on the subway, T.K. and Patamon shivered as a chill ran down their spines. Patamon was curled up in T.K.'s lap trying to not break the illusion he was stuffed creature by crying. Agunimon's rather brutal spar had been an unpleasant wakeup call for the rookie digimon. Patamon was ashamed that he had lost access to his Magnaangemon form after waiting so long and trying so hard to reach his Ultimate level. Then to rub salt on his wound, Agunimon had completely owned Patamon in that beat down while he was Angemon. How could he hope to protect T.K., Gatomon, and the others if he only had a fraction of his former abilities?

Somewhat similar, although less self-critical, thoughts were floating in T.K.'s head. Four years ago after the defeat of the Dark Masters it had seemed to him to be the end of one of those great hero stories. In the stories the hero always beats the bad guy in the end and enjoys the happy ending. To T.K.'s then eight year old mind it all made perfect sense. None of the older kids had said or done anything differently so T.K. hadn't had any reason to think something was wrong with his thinking. He had been so hopeful that the good times were going to continue forever.

Now that T.K. thought about it he wondered if his older friends had been trying to put the bad experiences they had in the Digital World behind them. T.K. could see from looking back at his memories that things had been far more dangerous than his eight year old self had realized. Back then, especially when they first were in the Digital World, the older kids had constantly been worried about running out of water, food, or trying to find a safe place to sleep. Further careful reflection on his memories revealed that the others had always insured that he and later he and Kari had the biggest fish or the ripest fruit from the group's foraging.

Ranma and Flamemon had taken a different approached then T.K.'s friends after the Dark Masters were defeated. From his earlier conversation, T.K. found that Ranma took his position as the Chosen Child of Duty very seriously. Where T.K. and his friends had been relaxing, Ranma and Flamemon had been training. The power that Ranma himself had was both frightening and awe inspiring. Part of T.K. wished he had that kind of strength so that he could help protect Patamon. Another part of T.K. was sorry that Ranma had such a poor set of circumstances in his life. From what his father had found out, T.K. wouldn't wish Ranma's life on his worst enemy.

T.K. got up when the subway got to his stop and exited the subway car. He paid his travel fee and then exited the station to start walking the rest of the way home with Patamon now resting in his head. After about a block, Patamon whispered to T.K. "T.K., can we go back to the dojo in a few days?"

This question caused T.K. to raise an eyebrow for a second and then he said, "If you want to Patamon I'm sure we can arrange it. Why do you want to go back out of curiosity?"

Patamon's eyes got a determined look in them before he whispered out, "I need to practice fighting again T.K. Flamemon showed me that I'm out of practice. How can I protect you if I've let myself go so much? I don't know where else to go to practice."

With a practice ease T.K. reached up so that it would look to anyone else like he was readjusting his stuffed animal in order to pet Patamon. T.K. then whispered, "Don't worry buddy. I'm sure we can find a way for you to practice at home as well." How that would happen wasn't something T.K. had worked out yet. He just wanted to help Patamon feel better and he hoped that he could work something out for his partner. His words had the desired effect and T.K. felt Patamon relax before he removed his hand.

Neither of the two said anything else for the rest of the walk back home. Patamon flew off of T.K.'s head as soon as he closed the front door. The little digimon landed on the kitchen counter and walked over to a half hidden water bottle. Patamon then uncapped the bottle and had several good swallows of water. T.K. finished putting away his shoes just as Patamon finished having his water and then announced that he was home.

Nancy walked out of her office and smiled at her son. She quickly closed the gap between them and pulled her son into a hug. "Oh I'm so happy your home T.K." After hugging T.K. for a few seconds, Nancy pushed back so that she was arm's length from her son while still holding him and looking over him with a mother's eye for any scratches or problems. Nancy spoke again once she was sure T.K. was fine. "How did your meeting go? Were you able to find Ranma Saotome?"

T.K. nodded his head and then said, "It turns out that Ranma knows a lot more about the Digital World and about digidestined than we ever considered."

Like any decent mother, Nancy quickly picked up on her son's tone of worry mixed with a pinch of self-doubt. She got on one knee so that she could look her son in the eye and asked, "What's the problem T.K.? Did you have to deal with one of those incidents that your father said seem to constantly happen to Ranma?"

"No Mom," T.K. shook his head slightly and then continued on. "It's just that, well, the others and I messed up big time." With a little prodding from his mother, T.K. told her everything that he had learned from Ranma and about how Patamon could no longer go Ultimate.

Everything that she heard seemed to increase Nancy's worry. The only reason why she hadn't gone prematurely grey from worry the last time her sons fought in the Digital World was the fact that she knew their partners would protect them. Having her children's partners unable to digivolve and only able to reach a fraction of their former strength if they could digivolve was terrifying. By the end, the only thing keeping Nancy from panicking was the fact that doing so would just make things worse for T.K.

When Nancy heard about Patamon's request, she metaphorically grabbed onto it with both hands. Ranma apparently had a way around this Emperor's ability to stop digimon digivolving and he knew how to help train digimon. Paying for transit and likely dojo fees given that Ranma lived at a dojo would put a crimp on the monthly budget. However, Nancy was sure she could work the budget to make it happen so that T.K. had the best possibility of staying safe.

* * *

Sealed away in the Digital World, Azulongmon the Digimon Sovereign of the East was working as hard as he could under the constraints placed by the enemy. He had found three new digidestined that could be bonded to the Armor Digivolution capable digimon that his fellow Sovereigns were creating. However, he wasn't entirely happy with the selection. Azulongmon was operating under statistically ludicrous odds to find these new digidestined which became even worse with focusing his search within a couple of time zones of Japan. Had he found someone in say Nigeria, which he hadn't even with a thorough search, then the digidestined would have had a logistical nightmare trying to coordinate their attacks on the fallen Chosen Child.

Thank Huanglongmon that he had found three acceptable digidestined to be in Japan. But, the key word was acceptable and not perfect. These three new digidestined would have their bond to their partners, but the bond would have static for lack of a better description. Azulongmon could see that these three digidestined would have problems digivolving their partners normally since they'd have to force more energy through their bond to get past the static. Some calculations done by the Sovereign suggested that these new digidestined might not be able to digivolve their partners to the champion level normally and that did not sit well with him. The trio would have Armor Digivolution, but not insuring that their partners could digivolve to champion felt like a slap in the face to Azulongmon.

Azulongmon did have an idea to deal with this problem that he got from observing some data from a hospital. Humans had created medicines to help prevent rejection of transplants due to the transplant not being a perfect match to a body's original organ or tissue. Couldn't he create something similar to prevent the static from interfering with the new digidestined's bond with their partners? Yes, he could do that and perhaps introduce a code into both digidestined and partner digimon to enhance their bond and thus end the need for his cure.

But what form would this bond static prevention take and how would he go about causing the changes? He couldn't do a brute force change like Huanglongmon did to make Flamemon compatible with Armor Digivolution. That would be unnecessarily cruel to the new digidestined and Azulongmon couldn't send out enough of his power thanks to being sealed in his sanctuary to do so even if he was inclined to take such actions. Perhaps he could give the children a supply of pills to treat the issue? Humans did take medicines all the time to cure medical problems. But, doing it that way would have a host of problems such as how do you get the pills to the kids, how do you insure they take them regularly, and so on. All the possible problems Azulongmon could see were starting to wear down his mental strength.

The Digimon Sovereign chuckled at the thought that this self-imposed quest was wearing him down more than Huanglongmon's quest to find three digidestined who could be matched to Armor Digivolution capable digimon. Azulongmon's eyes widened in inspiration as in idea came to him. Clothes that the digidestined could wear! A few tweaks to the new D3s being created for the new digidestined would make it easy for the Digiportal to create new clothes for kids that could prevent the bond static while in the Digital World. The clothes could also be used to help improve the digidestined's bond with their partner so that the issue will hopefully be gone by the time the fallen Chosen Child was dealt with.

Azulongmon made some notes about the clothes idea and created a program to do some initial number crunching for him on the project. In a few hours, he would check on the program and see what tweaks were needed to get the desired results. He wished that he could more to help the digidestined, but everything in his power that could be done to help was being done. One of the real problems of being a deity was that you had no one to pray to for help when things were on the line.


	6. Chapter 6

Darcmon was tapping her foot as she waited in front of a monitor. After what seemed like ages to her, the monitor started to glow with the light of the Digiport activating. The light faded to reveal Ranma and Flamemon standing in front of the monitor. Darcmon smiled at seeing Ranma and took a step closer to him. She then said, "You're back Ranma! I'm so glad to see you again."

Flamemon coughed to draw everyone's attention to him. Darcmon frowned a bit at seeing Ranma's rather rude partner. She then said, "Oh I see you manage to stay in one piece Flamemon. How short of a leash did Ranma have to put you on to keep you from causing problems?"

"Watch it Pinupmon! I'll have you know that it's me keeping Ranma out of problems."

Before either digimon could continue their combative greeting, Ranma spoke up. "Be grateful that Mr. Tendo or my father can't see you two right now. Those two would probably say something about you two being perfect for each other." That ended the duo's antics right then and there. Darcmon had a look of pure horror at the thought of being in a romantic relationship with Flamemon of all mons. As for Flamemon, he was turning green since he knew Soun and Genma would say something like that.

Ranma waited a moment and then said, "So Darcmon you seem to be doing well since we last meet. Were you or anyone else working for the Boss," Ranma paused for a second to dodge a semi-playful attempt by Darcmon to smack him, "able to find anything else out about the so called Digimon Emperor?"

Darcmon huffed in annoyance at being unable to scold Ranma for treating Huanglongmon so informally before she spoke. "It's been slow going since we don't want to either loose our supporters to the enemy's control or alert whatever is using the corrupted child to our activities. However, we were able to find out some important information. First, it appears that the dark rings have some limits in terms of the digimon they can control. The three ultimate level digimon with dark rings have all found that they can fight the ring's controls and regain control from time to time. It's also easier for them to regain control when the corrupted child is not around them. We currently believe that the dark ring's control limit is at the champion level."

Ranma nodded his head and said, "Ultimate level digimon were rare even before the Dark Masters and the Great Reset. Very, very few digimon have been able to grow to that level of strength in the short time since the reset. Have these ultimates' broken free?" Having a group of digimon who could free themselves from the Emperor's control would be wonderful to have in this fight.

The angel digimon shook her head and then responded. "All three of them were deep in enemy territory when they discovered they could suppress the control of the dark rings. They each were concerned that an attempt to escape would result in them causing lots of destruction, hurting other controlled digimon, and ultimately result in them being captured again. Our contacts state that they were afraid that if the corrupted child is alerted to this flaw in the dark rings that his handlers will correct this flaw. The trio has each agreed to be undercover agents for us supplying what information they can get their hands on."

"This leads me to the second important piece of information that our spies were able to uncover. The control over the dark rings, and presumably the anti-digivolving field, has a limited range. Judging by his movements, the corrupted child personal range of control with his digivice is about a radius of 2 kms. He is putting a massive amount of his slave labor into creating dark spires which act as control relays for his dark rings. Based off of their placement and enemy movement, dark spires have an effective control range of about 20 kms all around."

A small smile appeared on Ranma's face when he heard that fact. He then said, "Looks like we've got a weakness to exploit. Do you have any ideas on if he's built back up dark spires to control areas? What about counter intelligence actions on the dork's part? Has he shown any times of inactivity?" Ranma already had a basic plan cooking in his head. However, he needed to know more before he acted. This wasn't doing something to try and help himself. Acting without thinking back in Nerima was stupid, but the problems mainly fell on him so it was okay. Digimon lives were riding on his decisions so he had to take the time now to plan things through to the best of his ability.

Darcmon nodded her head and said in a slightly flirty manner, "Good questions Ranma. At the moment, we haven't seen any reports of dark spires being placed with overlapping fields of control. That will probably change once the Corrupted Child realizes that someone's fighting back effectively. The Corrupted Child seems to mainly be relying on hidden cameras for information gathering within his territory. The cameras aren't everywhere, but they are placed such a way to alert him to any threats to his assets. Our contacts have determined that the Corrupted Child puts his territory in an effective standby mode roughly around 7:30 PM every night and is active again around 4 pm the following weekday. He is far more active on the weekends when humans don't have school."

Both Ranma and Flamemon nodded their heads when they heard it half expecting such an answer. As a Chosen Child, their enemy was around Ranma's age and had to deal with the issues any child face such as going to school. If the Emperor was around Ranma's age, he could have gotten out of that hassle by simply not signing up for high school. However, Ranma thought that such a move was unlikely. High school might only be optional in Japan, but there was a great deal of social pressure from parents, family, and friends for someone to go to high school. Even Genma realized that it would be a bad idea to keep Ranma from going to high school in order to use the time for martial arts training.

There was a moment of silence before Darcmon spoke up again. "So what is your next move Ranma? Do you want to gather more information, start attacking the Corrupted Child, or do you have something else in mind?"

Ranma closed his eyes and weighed his options for a bit. He then opened his eyes and said, "Its best if we hold off on attacking at the moment. Right now our biggest asset is that our enemy isn't aware that we exist so we should use that to advantage. First, we should focus on locating more digimentals. If we're lucky, we can find one that the other chosen children can use giving us two champion armor digimon. Worst case is that Flamemon gets another half hour charge to continue fighting before I have to top the digimentals off again. If there are any digimentals in enemy territory it would be best to get them now while we're still unknown to the dork."

This would also give Ranma time to learn the Bakusai Tenketsu. It hadn't been high on Ranma's priority to learn since his fighting style focused on either evading or redirecting enemy attacks instead of tanking the attacks. However, the ability to destroy the dark spires with a mere touch would be a godsend in this upcoming campaign. For the Digital World, Ranma was willing to go even further into Cologne's debt regardless of the hell he would no doubt catch. Hell, Ranma was even willing to grovel to Ryoga to learn the technique if he needed to do so. He was the Chosen Child of Duty and nothing would stop him from fulfilling his duty to the Digital World. Ranma had sworn his loyalty and honor over to Huanglongmon years ago when he first met the boss. Everything else with the exception of Flamemon was second to that.

Continuing on Ranma said, "Second, Flamemon and I need to learn more about the Backdoor Zone. Using the Backdoor Zone in addition to the Digiportals would allow us to rapidly attack the enemy holdings in vastly different areas. The Backdoor Zone will also help us move around undetected in the enemy's territory."

Darcmon frown when she heard the second request. She had the knowledge necessary to teach Ranma how to fully navigate the Backdoor Zone and she honestly wanted him to know his way around there. It would be something else that the two of them, with Flamemon as an irritating tag along, to do and share together. If any digidestined or chosen child was worthy of knowing the secrets of that realm it was Ranma. After all, Lord Huanglongmon regularly invited Ranma to its personal dimension and spoke directly to him. That was a rare honor even for those digimon blessed to live in the Supreme Digital Sovereign's personal realm.

However, the knowledge of the Backdoor Zone and the ways to navigate its labyrinthine paths was not Darcmon's to give to whoever she wished. Darcmon frowned and said, "I have to check with my superiors on teaching you more about the Backdoor Zone. I want to teach you about the zone and think that you've proven yourself worthy of knowing how to navigate it. However, I don't have the authority to teach that to you. I will check later to see if you can be allowed to learn how to navigate the Backdoor Zone."

Ranma nodded his head and said, "Understood Darcmon. Well, let's just focus on the finding the digimentals for now until you get the okay." Darcmon nodded her head and then the trio began their quest.

* * *

T.K. said goodbye to his mother and left the apartment with Patamon hidden away in his backpack. He and his partner were a little disappointed that they hadn't been able to visit Ranma again for some training before school started. However, Kari needed help taking care of YukimiBotamon when she first hatched. Her partner became even more hyper once she digivolved to Nyaromon. Add in having to help get the apartment set up and T.K. had no time to visit Ranma. He barely had time to go across the neighborhood to visit Matt let alone across the Special Wards!

The Chosen Child of Hope left earlier than needed to get to school because of a detour he and Patamon needed to make. Five minutes and two blocks later, T.K. arrived at the apartment complex that the Yagamis lived at. Taichi and Kari came walking out a minute later. The Yagami siblings smiled at their friend and greeted him. T.K. returned the hellos and said "So are we going to go through with the game plan?"

Taichi was about to speak when Kari's backpack started to shake. Kari let out a small sigh and swung her backpack around so that she could open the zipper just a tad. That pinch was all Nyaromon needed to pop out of the backpack. Kari dropped her backpack in surprise as she hurriedly grabbed the yellow head with a tail like digimon. She blurted out, "Nyaromon! What on earth do you think you're doing?"

Like any in-training digimon, Nyaromon was a ball of energy and spoke in a hyper manner. "I needed some fresh air! Do you realize just how much it stinks in there when you've got a nose as sensitive as mine? Besides, now that I'm out I can look around and keep an eye out to protect you Kari!" Kari had to hold onto Nyaromon to keep the digimon from bouncing in her arms.

Both boys took a look around to make sure that people weren't looking at Kari and her partner. Taichi walked a few steps so that he could block Nyaromon from any potential onlookers in the streets. At the same time, T.K. opened his backpack so that Patamon could be let out. T.K. held Patamon in his arms and carried the rookie over so that he could talk to the in-training digimon. Patamon hissed in a whisper, "Calm down Nyaromon! You could put Kari in danger if you act like that where regular people can see you."

That got Nyaromon to freeze up. The last thing she wanted to do was make things dangerous for Kari. Her maturity from her time Gatomon was able to reemerge thanks to Patamon's presence and his words of worry. Nyaromon was angry at herself for acting so hyper and with barely any control over her impulses. She had been forced to learn control while working under Myotismon, but it did have its benefits. By being calm and in control of herself she had been able to be more alert making it easier for her to locate dangers thus making it easier for her to protect Kari. It had also allowed her to keep Kari calm during some of the rougher moments of their adventure to defeat the Dark Masters.

Now that she was Nyaromon that calmness and control was completely shot! Nyaromon constantly felt like she had so much energy and wanted to move around. It was too bad in Nyaromon's opinion that she couldn't use the energy she felt to digivolve. She also found her attention wandering to whatever would catch her eye making her want to investigate it until something else caught her eye. Stupid in-training stage body, Nyaromon wished she would at least digivolve to rookie so that she could calm down and stay calm.

Now that Nyaromon was no longer acting like a Mexican jumping bean, the group headed off to the elementary school. Occasionally, Patamon would have to whisper to the in-training digimon to stay still so as to not attract attention. Most people on the busy sidewalks ignored the group either out of politeness or being focused on their own lives. The few people who did notice the group, or more specifically the digimon, quickly assumed that they were some sort of stuffed animal. A couple of younger kids carrying stuffed animals weren't really that noteworthy. Occasionally, an onlooker thought that the kids were a little old to carry stuffed animals in public and give it an extra second before forgetting about it.

Once they got to school, Taichi said his goodbyes and headed off to his high school. No one really paid any attention to this as there was a decent amount of older high schoolers escorting their younger siblings to their first day of class. Patamon and Nyaromon were discreetly slipped into the bushes by the front entrance by T.K. and Kari while they were saying goodbye to Taichi. The duo then headed into school and looked up their classrooms on the room postings that were on the main bulletin board. It was a pleasant surprise for T.K. and Kari to discover that they had the same classroom this year.

Patamon led Nyaromon into the school via an air duct that he had found when T.K. took him along during T.K.'s tour of the school for new and transfer students last week. The two digimon watched over their partners in silence as T.K. and Kari went through their classes. More often than not, Patamon had to put a paw on Nyaromon to keep the in-training digimon quiet. Both digimon conducted a raid on the cafeteria for their lunches and quickly regretted that decision. How could anyone serve something so foul tasting and claim it was healthy? No wonder the students put so much of it in the garbage can.

The school day ended after what seemed like forever and both digimon started to make their way to the computer lab. Nyaromon busted out of the vent which Patamon had unscrewed earlier and quickly hopped onto a computer desk. "Finally!" the little digimon cheered. "Spending all that time in that air duct wasn't any fun at all."

Patamon hissed at Nyaromon as he followed her up onto the desk while keeping an eye out for people. "Nyaromon, remember that we're supposed to be hiding! What if a regular kid had been in here? You would have caused a panic and possibly gotten Kari and T.K. into a lot of trouble."

Nyaromon's ears drooped when she heard that. What made it worse for the in-training digimon was the fact that she knew Patamon was correct. The duo ducked under the desk when they heard the door to the computer lab start to open. They positioned themselves so that they could at least see the feet of the room's new occupants with Patamon keeping a paw on Nyaromon's mouth. However, a bright light came from one of the computer screens and filled the room before either digimon could start to count the number of visitors.

When the light died down, there were three cries of "What is this?" that were heard by the digimon. Both Patamon and Nyaromon recognized some of the voices as belonging to members of T.K. and Kari's class, but neither of them could say more than that. Patamon motioned for Nyaromon to stay still and then he discreetly maneuvered himself to see who was in the room. The rookie saw T.K., Kari, Yamato, and Taichi like he expected. However, Patamon also saw three kids that he didn't recognize that were all looking at something they were each holding.

T.K. recognized the new variant of digivice in Daisuke's, Iori's, and Miyako's hands and was of mixed opinion about this. On the one hand, this meant that the trio was now digidestined and they wouldn't have to try to get them to leave so that the digidestined could go to the Digital World without being discovered. On the other hand, this meant that he and the others would have to explain everything to the new trio and try to get them to understand why they needed to fight to save the Digital World. T.K. glanced over at his brother and the Yagami siblings and noticed that they were confused. He then realized that he was the only one among his friends that had previously seen the newer type of digivice.

The younger blond spoke up to get things moving. "That is a digivice you three. It means that you are all digidestined like us although we have a different model digivice." T.K. took out his digivice to show the trio.

Patamon flew into view and landed on T.K.'s head startling the new kids. Daisuke got bug eye and pointed to Patamon as he yammered unintelligibly. Both Iori and Miyako were surprised as well to see Patamon, but they didn't cause as big of a scene. Patamon gave the trio of new digidestined a once over and said, "So these three are the new help."

T.K. chuckled at his partner's joke and replied, "I guess so Patamon. Since they were just discovered to be digidestined we haven't had a chance to explain anything to them. Everyone, this is my digimon partner and friend Patamon. Could you please introduce yourselves to him?"

Iori's politeness kicked in and he bowed slightly. "It is a pleasure to meet you Patamon. My name is Iori Hida."

Miyako was next in greeting Patamon. "Hello there little guy, my name's Miyako."

There was a pause while Daisuke got his act together. He then said, "Nice to meet you? I'm Daisuke, but I also go by Davis. It's a nickname I picked up from family gatherings since I've got an older cousin in Nerima that's also called Daisuke."

Before anyone could say anything else, a beep was heard coming from T.K., Kari, Taichi, and Yamato's backpacks. The quartet opened their backpacks and pulled out their D-Terminals. Taichi read the message on the compact computer first and said, "It's from Ranma. He's found another digimental and three lights shot out of it when he touched it. He also sent his location to us. Let's go!"

Taichi quickly turned on the computer and brought up the Digiportal. He then used his digivice to transport himself to the Digital World. T.K. and Patamon quickly followed Taichi with Kari and Nyaromon hot on their heels. Yamato looked at the new digidestined and said, "Go on. It doesn't hurt at all and only lasts a few seconds before you're in the Digital World."

Davis gulped and nervously held his digivice to the computer screen. This was really starting to sound like one of the bizarre adventures his cousin mentioned that tended to occur around Furinkan. Hell, there was even a Ranma involved somehow and knowing his luck Davis was afraid that the Ranma everyone was talking about was none other than Ranma Saotome. Those adventures were funny to hear about, but the thought of being in even one of the tame adventures that Daisuke related to Davis had him scared. At the same time, Davis didn't want to be shown up by T.K. It was bad enough that the pretty boy apparently was an old friend of Kari. However, acting like a coward at something that T.K. and Kari treated as perfectly normal while T.K.'s older brother was watching was not something Davis could tolerate. He hoped that he didn't pee in his pants or something else embarrassing as the digiportal activated.

Once Davis was gone, Iori and Miyako both glanced at each other. The two friends were rather nervous about all of this. However, they were both happy that they were going through all of this with someone they knew and trusted. They held out their digivices and were pulled into the portal. Yamato looked around to give the computer lab one last check before he used his digivice to enter the Digital World.

* * *

Ranma, Flamemon, and Darcmon were standing in a cave guarding the digimentals they had found. The trio hoped that the other digidestined were able to get to them without being spotted. Flamemon had taken out of the camera observing the nearest digiportal earlier by having a nearby tree fall on it. This was the first time any of the trio had taken out one of the Digimon Emperor's cameras and they were hoping that he'd write this off as a freak accident if he noticed the missing camera. However, they couldn't just take out every camera between their location and the nearest digiport monitor. One camera going down was pushing it. If they took out two or more they might as well send the Emperor a notice that they were here.

Darcmon spoke up, "Ranma, do you think that the others will follow the path you sent them in the email?" The path had been scouted by Flamemon that would bring the other digidestined to the cave without them crossing the path of any cameras. However, the path took almost twice as long to get to the cave from the digiportal then going by a near straight line.

Flamemon rolled his eyes and said, "This is us Pinupmon. Our luck is never that good. What we should be asking is how many controlled digimon are we going to have to fight when the others show up. If our luck was even halfway decent than Ranma would have been able to pick up those digimentals and we would have been out of here instead of waiting for the others to bring us hell chasing after them."

The angelic digimon rolled her eyes at her beloved's digimon partner. She then spoke to him like she was speaking to a child. "Each digimental has protections placed on them to prevent anyone but the digidestined originally intended to use them by the Digital Sovereigns from removing the digimental. Once they're removed then the digimentals can be handed to different digidestined to use. It's a safety feature to prevent those we don't want to have the digimentals, like say the self-proclaimed Digimon Emperor, from getting them. Ranma is a digidestined, has possession of a digimental, and is one of the strongest examples of a human being in existence. But, he wasn't able to budge one of those two digimentals an inch when he tried to move one at your insistence Flamemon. Sadly, the information was never given to Lord Huanglongmon on who is the intended for each digimental."

Ranma was leaning against the cave wall trying to use Darcmon and Flamemon's banter to keep calm. Missions in enemy territory were always very dangerous since there was so much that could go wrong. What made Ranma so nervous was the fact that he was working with a large group of digidestined that he wasn't used to working with and most of them didn't have their digimon partners nearby. Stealth operations like this one were always at risk whenever you added another person to the team. More bodies meant more opportunities for the enemy to notice your presence. There was also the factor that Ranma didn't know how the others would react in these sorts of situations which heightened the risk. To top things off, most of the other digidestined were effective sitting ducks if something went wrong meaning that a mistake was much more likely to be deadly.

The sound of footsteps caused Ranma to stop leaning and made him signal for the digimon to be quiet. He quietly headed to the cave entrance and looked around. Ranma was relieved to see T.K., Patamon, and bunch of digidestined he had never met before heading towards him. The Chosen of Duty stepped out of the cave and motioned for the group to follow him. Ranma headed back into the cave and took a position to guard the entrance.

T.K. greeted Ranma and introductions were quickly done for both groups. Once the introductions were done, Ranma spoke up, "I think the newbies should have first crack at the digimentals. They're set up so that only certain people can remove them. These two digimentals might not be intended for anyone here, but I think it's more likely that they're for the new digidestined."

Taichi nodded his head having heard from T.K. just how rare the ability to use a digimental was supposed to be. Besides, the new digidestined got their digivices when Ranma touched the digimental so shouldn't they go to the new kids? However, a part of Taichi felt that those two digimentals weren't meant for the new kids because of the crests shown on them. Ranma and his friends had found the digimentals of Hope and Light. Shouldn't T.K. and Kari have been given at least the chance to try and get the digimentals that matched their crests?

Iori and Miyako were the nearest of the new digidestined to the digimentals so they got first crack at them. Iori tried to lift the digimental of hope while Miyako tried the digimental of light. After a minute of trying, the duo gave up and switched digimentals. They had no more success with the other digimental than they had with the first one to grab.

A roar was heard in the distance that was answered by several other roars. Ranma frowned and muttered, "Tyrannomon." He didn't know if one of the other digidestined had alerted the Dork or if they simply had the bad luck to have come across a regular patrol of Tyrannomon. Either way it didn't matter since the dinosaur type digimon's nose would easily pick up the group's scent. In fact, it seemed they already had judging from the faint vibrations he felt. Ranma turned to the others and said, "Flamemon lets buy some time. Darcmon, you're the last line of defense. Everyone else should focus on recovering those digimentals."

Flamemon turned to Darcmon and said, "Called it."

Darcmon narrowed her eyes and said, "No one likes a smart alack. Now go help Ranma."

There was a resigned look on Flamemon's face as he ran to catch up to Ranma. The Chosen of Duty spotted his partner and tapped his digivice in a questioning manner. Flamemon sighed and said, "Might as well get this indignity over with."

Ranma nodded his head and grabbed his digivice with his hand. He then called out, "Digi-Armor Energize."

The red light of the digimental of Duty shot out from the digivice and into Flamemon. This caused the digimon to chant as he transformed. "Flamemon Armor Digivolve to… Kazemon," There was a resigned toned in the digimon's voice as she finished her Armor Digivolution. Kazemon took to the sky and Ranma followed after her by jumping into the tree canopy. Three enemy Tyrannomon were quickly spotted by Kazemon who called down. "We've got one at 11 o'clock and two at 1 o'clock."

Ranma nodded his head and called back, "I've got 11 o'clock. You can tack the two at 1 o'clock." He didn't like sticking his partner with the lion's share of the work. However, Ranma knew that Kazemon's flight would make it easier for her to get at the Dark Rings one such large digimon. He quickly spotted his targeted Tyrannomon and a second later saw the duo that his partner was going after. Thankfully Ranma was downwind of the digimon or this would be trickier as he closed in on his target. The Tyrannomon that Ranma was approaching suddenly turned its head towards it's compatriots and snarled. It most likely either sense or was informed that its fellow slaves were being attacked by Kazemon.

It was easy for Ranma to take advantage of the opening this provided him by jumping from the tree onto the back of the Tyrannomon. He rushed up the surprised red dinosaur digimon's back not about to let the element of surprise be wasted. Ranma was on the digimon's shoulder before it could get over the surprise and Ranma pressed home the advantage by slamming his fist into the Dark Ring shattering the dark construct. A few pieces of the ring fell a meter or so before they dissolved into flecks of data.

The Tyrannomon froze as his, Ranma was close enough now that he could spot the minute differences hinting at the digimon's gender, suppressed personality regained control of his body. "Huh? What happened?"

Ranma jumped down from the Tyrannomon and landed in front of the confused digimon. He cupped his hands together around his mouth and called out, "You're free now. If you don't want to be put under the Digital Dork's control again I recommend you run in that direction," Ranma paused for a moment to point in the direction closest to free territory. He brought his hands over his mouth again to amplify his voice as continued to speak. "Also, destroy any dark rings you see flying in the air. One of those got on you and took control of you."

Unwanted memories returned to the champion digimon causing the dinosaur to shutter. He nodded his head and said, "Thanks for freeing me. If you don't mind I'm going while the goings good." Ranma nodded his head and waved the freed digimon off before heading towards Kazemon. The freed Tyrannomon was muttering under his breath about never believing ads for all you can eat sushi bars again.

Kazemon had finished here part of the strike by the time Ranma reached his partner. Guerilla Warfare was something both of them had plenty of experience with from their time fighting the Dark Masters. The Tyrannomon didn't stand a chance. Kazemon landed in front of Ranma and de-digivolved back into Flamemon. Both human and digimon grinned at each other before bumping fists in celebration at a quick victory. Flamemon then cheerfully said, "let's go see if everyone was able to get those digimentals removed or not."


	7. Chapter 7

Ranma and Flamemon exited the digiport at Furinkan High and started to make their way back to the Dojo. Flamemon sighed and then spoke to his partner. "I don't like this Ranma. The enemy knows we exist and all we have on our side is you, 2 Armor Digivolution capable digimon, 1 that will be capable of Armor Digivolution once she digivolves to a rookie, and 3 green as grass newbie digidestined who haven't even found their partners! At the moment I think we were better off when it was just you, me, and even Darcmon! At least when it was just the three of us we could move fast and everyone could pull their weight. The other Digidestined seem to basically be batteries for their partners."

This blunt, but somewhat accurate, description of the others irritated Ranma slightly because it hit something that annoyed him about the others. They were good kids from what Ranma could see. Hell, Taichi did in impressive job leading a bunch of city kids to survive in a wilderness that was far more dangerous than any on Earth that Ranma had been to in his life. Their bonds with their partners was close and deep like the bond he had with Flamemon and that was something any Digidestined could approve.

However, their attitudes to their positions as both Digidestined and Chosen Children grated on Ranma. Why didn't they train themselves to help out their partners? T.K. and Kari were somewhat understandable given that they were taking care of Kari's partner. Fresh and In-Training level digimon required lots of care and constant attention to make sure they didn't do something dangerous. Ranma had heard no mention of the group doing even basic physical training to stay fit beyond what was required at school. Physical training was something Ranma excelled at since it was part of martial arts which he loved. He knew that he took it very seriously even for Nerima where the students were ranked the best at physical activities in all the Special Wards. Ranma would have needed to excel in his physical abilities even without his duties as the Chosen Child of Duty or love of martial arts given the craziness he was exposed to in his life. Still, one would think that the others would at least take up track so they could get out of their partners' ways in a fight.

Ranma mused as he cleaned the gutters of some houses on circular route back to the dojo that perhaps Huanglongmon had even more foresight than he gave the digital entity. Ranma knew he wasn't normal by most definitions of the word before he got his curse or even before he met Flamemon. Even as a little boy he spent way too much time training in martial arts to be considered normal. The schools his father had selected for him before Furinkan either had a martial focus or were rowdy places where one had to be tough to survive. He was raised to be a fighter/survivalist with an outdoor specialty and he was one of if not the best at this for his age in Japan. Drop Ranma in the middle of the forest buck naked and he could thrive. Give him a martial arts competition and he would come out on top every time.

However, these skills and abilities came at the cost of social skills and even general knowledge sometimes that most people would consider basic. Ranma knew that major part of his problems in Nerima, besides his insanely crazy luck, was his poor people skills. Contrary to popular opinion, Ranma was well aware that he had the social skills of someone who was raised by wolves. There were days that Ranma wished that he had been raised by wolves; that friendly Garurumon couple he and Kenny had meet had been a great help when the duo started their time in the Digital World. It was just that trying to gain those skills would take away time from training that Ranma needed to keep his head above water in the Nerima insanity. This of course meant that Ranma often didn't have the skills needed to avoid situations where his martial skills were necessary to save him from pain.

Yet another one of those annoying damned if you do and damned if you don't situations where having a silver tongue would be very helpful seemed to be on the horizon to Ranma as he approached the Tendo Dojo. A quick glance revealed Shampoo's bike on the outer wall of the complex and Ranma could detect Akane's anger laced chi coming from the home. These two things were not a good sign for him and delaying going home would just make things worse. The one time he tried to delay coming to the dojo he literally had to rent out the neighbor's doghouse for a week while his dad, the Tendos, and the other fiancées calmed down.

Ranma and Flamemon jumped down from the roof of the neighbor's house and land at the front door. The duo opened the door and Ranma lazily kicked off his shoes so that they landed in their storage box. Flamemon grabbed the small brush Kasumi had left near the shoe storage and cleaned up the soles of his feet. He did not want to get on the eldest Tendo daughter's bad side on this issue. The duo walked with all of the dignity available to a condemned person. Shampoo and Akane were shouting judging from the voices. However, Ranma and Flamemon couldn't understand what the two were saying thanks to the walls and the anger in the two young women's voices.

Unfortunately for the condemned, Nabiki spotted them before either Ranma or Flamemon could gain any solid information on what was going on. Nabiki quickly diverted her sister and Shampoo's attention hoping to avoid a fight in the house involving her sister. "Why hello there Ranma, I see that you and Flamemon are back from your trip. It's rather interesting to see you on a long term quest that lets you return home every day."

Akane and Shampoo turned their heads to look at arriving duo just as Nabiki hoped they would. Nabiki kept her expression calm and collective, but on the inside she was letting out a massive sigh of relief. For all the accusations of heartlessness, the middle Tendo sister did care about her family. She didn't want Akane's temper to write a check that Shampoo would happily take out of her hide and that was a best case scenario. Nabiki knew her sister was a good martial artist, but she also knew that Shampoo was better. Ranma was strong and skilled enough as a fighter to handle Shampoo in a fight and Nabiki knew that the lavender haired amazon cared too much for the lug to fight him with the potential to maim the boy.

Shampoo smiled at Ranma and lunged for him to hold him in a glop. In a chipper tone Shampoo said, "Airen! It's been so long since I've seen you." She pulled Ranma closer to her so that her impressive bust was pressing into Ranma's chest.

Ranma gulped and nervously said, "Yes Shampoo. It has been a few days since I last saw you."

The Amazon warrior looked up at her beloved and said, "A few days? Ranma, it's been almost two weeks! I know you're supposed to be doing something important in that other world, but can't you take the time to visit me?" Shampoo missed her husband and wanted to spend more time with him. Between her studies, helping out Great-Grandmother, and fending off Mousse she didn't have a lot of free time. Having Ranma's time when she had free time eaten up with this quest he was on really annoyed Shampoo. She respected the fact that Ranma had duties placed on him by a god and even admired that he pursued those duties with complete diligence. However, Shampoo was a young woman who needed time with her husband and she was bound and determined to have that time!

Flamemon butted in to add his two cents. "Look Shampoo, you're a little out of the loop so let me fill you in on something. We're stuck fighting an army of enslaved digimon with only Ranma, me, an annoying champion digimon, and a few other digidestined. These other digidestined aren't exactly A list material at the moment. Some of them haven't found their digimon partners yet! Maybe your granny hasn't told you yet, but Ranma supposed to get her help in whipping those digidestined and digimon into shape. If you want to spend time with him why don't you try to get on her good side so that she lets you help out?"

Soun and Genma burst into the room when they heard what Flamemon had said. They both shouted out at the same time, "That is completely unacceptable! If Ranma is to train anyone it should be here-" Both masters of Anything Goes were cut off by Flamemon punching their throats as he jumped up. These punches were followed a second later by kicks to force the duo to the ground.

Flamemon landed on Soun and Genma's heads. Everyone in the Tendo household turned to look at the human-digimon trio wondering what was going to happen. Flamemon looked down at the two masters and shook his head. "Look Genma, I may not personally like you, but I respect you as a teacher of high level martial arts. However, your ideas of training are too dangerous for anyone not a martial arts prodigy like Ranma or a digimon. The others are city kids used to living with caring parents in good neighborhoods. Their last time roughing it was 4 years ago and the newbies are even softer. If we let you help out on training them then the dojo would be taken away from the Tendos by lawsuits sent by the kids' parents."

Genma and Soun's faces turned deathly white at the thought of losing the dojo. Flamemon then continued his assault. "As for Soun, I'm sorry to say sir that you haven't taught anyone martial arts in years. We need to turn the other digidestined into warriors yesterday and can't wait for you to shake off all of the rust in your training abilities. Ranma is the Chosen Child of Duty for a reason and will go to great lengths to complete his duties as a digidestined. Asking Cologne for help was the best solution he could find to a bad situation. The other alternative is to make a similar deal with the devil you guys made."

A chill ran down everyone's spines at the thought of the Grand Master of Anything Goes. No one really wanted to spend more time with Happosai if they could avoid it. Shampoo, Akane, and Nabiki gave Ranma a questioning glance. The young man kept his face stoic to hide his thoughts about what Flamemon had just said. However, Ranma knew that he would make a deal with the proverbial devil if it was necessary. He had a duty to the Digital World and his partnership with Flamemon. Everything else was secondary to that.

* * *

Taichi and Yamato led, Kari, T.K., Patamon, Nyaromon, and the new digidestined out of the middle school computer lab. It was a path they had occasionally taken from the computer lab when they had stayed in the Digital World a little longer than they intended as students in the school. The older teens let out sighs of relief once everyone was safely out of the school without being discovered. They then lead the group over to a secluded part of a nearby park where the rest of the known digidestined were waiting.

Sora and the others were surprised to see the extra company with Taichi and the others of their group. The older digidestined waiting in the park looked at each other and then Sora nodded her head. She walked over to the arriving group and politely said, "Hello Taichi and Yamato. It's good to see you Kari and T.K. I hope your first day at school went well? Could you please introduce me to your new friends? I don't recognize them from summer camp."

Taichi chuckled and said, "No need for the cloak and dagger stuff Sora. These three are new digidestined that we discovered today. Meet Davis, Iori, and Miyako. Sadly, we haven't met their digimon partners yet. However, we did get to meet Ranma and found two of those digimental things that T.K. learned about from Ranma. In fact, T.K. and Kari both got those digimentals and an upgrade to their digivices as well."

Davis, Iori, and Miyako were quickly introduced to the older digidestined and then the older digidestined were informed about the day's adventure. Nyaromon spoke up once everyone was on the same page. "So what is our plan for tomorrow? We still have to find the others' digimon partners, free the enslaved digimon, and stop this delusional digidestined who is calling himself the Digimon Emperor. I think we should plan things out if we can instead of flying by the seats of our pants."

Mimi spoke up and said, "Maybe Patamon should try Armor Digivolving Nyaromon? I mean, from what I was told it sounds more like you're putting on an outfit than the regular digivolving we're used to seeing. If we know what he can do in his armor form we can plan better."

Joe fiddled with his glasses and spoke up. "We might want to take a rain check on that idea Mimi. It's a good idea, but I don't think this is the place for Patamon to try out a new digivolution. What if his armor form is huge like Greymon or Togemon? There would be massive panic if a huge digimon suddenly appeared in the park!"

Koushiro nodded his head before he added his two yen to the discussion. "Remaining calm and not causing a panic is our best course of action. Let's look at what we have to work with at the moment. According to T.K. and Patamon, Ranma told them when they last met that there were only two digidestined besides the Emperor whose partners could Armor Digivolve before Flamemon was altered to be able to Armor Digivolve. We can assume that Ranma's source of this information is good since it came from the Digital Sovereigns. T.K. and Kari have both recovered digimentals and had their digivices upgraded like Ranma's is supposed to have been. They are logically the two digidestined that Ranma spoke of when he and T.K. talked in Nerima."

"We also have Davis, Iori, and Miyako and their new digivices to consider. From what I've been told, the new digivices were sent to them when Ranma touched the Digimental of Hope. The Digital Sovereigns must have selected them to be digidestined since they and their partners would be compatible with Armor Digivolution. Ranma seems to think that their partners are connected to digimentals and I have to agree with his reasoning. Our digimon were living on their own due to the Dark Masters attack before they were hatched. It makes sense that the partners of the new digidestined would be near digimentals as they were created because of the need to use digimentals against this new enemy. Having their digimon partners anywhere else unless in reaction to enemy actions is illogical."

Yamato frowned and said, "I don't know Koushiro. That just sounds too convenient for me. We had to deal with a lot of crazy things just to get our tags and crests."

The genius of the team looked Yamato in the eye and replied. "That was in reaction to the Dark Masters and their subordinate's actions. Gennai and the Agents initial plan had been wrecked for years before we were first summoned to the Digital World. Looking back at our adventure and considering what little we've heard of Ranma's adventure, it has become clear to me that our side was never able to recover from the Dark Masters' opening attacks. We won, but we won a pyrrhic victory since the Digital World needed to go through the Great Reset."

Koushiro paused for a moment to look at the new trio before continuing on. "This time our side isn't hurt as badly. Negating our ability to have our partners' digivolve seems to be our enemy's biggest asset. It's a major problem, but it's one that we have work arounds to deal with it. Some of us by lucky accident had partners who could Armor Digivolve. The Digital Sovereigns also were able to find new digidestined who could have Armor Digivolving partners' decades if not centuries sooner. Please keep in mind how much faster time use to pass in the Digital World relative to Earth."

Iori frown as he thought about what Koushiro had just said. He still wasn't really sure what to make of being a digidestined. It was interesting to go to another world, but it seemed that there were many responsibilities attached to this privilege. He politely coughed to get everyone's attention and then said, "Excuse me, I don't have a lot of experience with all of this so please be understanding if I'm about to make a major mistake. It sounds like finding Davis, Miyako, and my own digimon partners is very important. Wouldn't it be a good idea to look for these digimentals since they seem to be the best clue we currently have to finding our partners? Even if Koushiro and Ranma are missing some clue in where our partners are, having the digimentals will give T.K., Kari, and Ranma an advantage. At worse, we'll just have the digimentals on hand when our partners are found."

The older digidestined turned to look at Iori thoughtfully. The looks were starting to make Iori nervous as he wasn't used to being at the center of attention of a group of people. This was especially true since the people paying attention to him were his upperclassmen and thus he was supposed to be respectful to them. Joe broke the silence and said, "Iori has a good point." A round of agreements quickly followed from the others which lifted Iori's spirit.

Miyako piped in, "Good thinking Iori!" She then turned to Taichi and asked, "So does this mean we're going to look for our partners?"

Taichi nodded his head and then moved to lean against a nearby tree. "It currently sounds like our best plan. T.K., can you contact Ranma and see if he's heard of any more digimental locations? I think we should all send our partners emails to see if they've heard any rumors about digimentals. Speaking of our partners, we should also pull them out of the Digital World if we can meet up with them. Getting Agumon to agree might be a bit tricky as he might think the risk of these Dark Rings is better than the risk of Mom's cooking." That got a quick round of chuckles from everyone that knew about Mrs. Yagami's cooking skills.

Another frown came to Yamato as he realized a potential problem. "Hey Koushiro, were you able to find another digiport with that scanner of yours? If we're relying on the digiport in the middle school for access to the Digital World than how are we all going to continuously get to the digiport unnoticed?"

Everyone turned to look at the red head computer genius only to see a frown on his face. "Sorry everyone, but I'm basically having to rewrite the entire program for my digiport scanner. My primary focus for the program was to predict when a digiport would open and how long it would stay open. The ability to scan for new digiports was an unintended bonus. That primary purpose is obsolete thanks to these new digivices. I'm trying to create a new version that focuses on finding digiport locations in our world, but I make no promises on when I'll get that accomplished."

Miyako spoke up, "Can I help you? I've got some experience working with computers and computer programs."

Koushiro nodded his head, "Any constructive help would be appreciated."

Joe spoke up and said, "That's good news, but that still leaves us with only having the digiport in the middle school for the time being. Yamato's right that we need to know how to get access to the digiport unnoticed."

Taichi stood up strait with a grim look on his face. "We, as in all of us older kids, are not going to be regularly going to the Digital World." Everyone snapped their heads to look at Taichi as he continued on speaking. "We're currently separated from our partners and our partners cannot Armor Digivolve. We don't even know if our partners are safe from these Dark Rings and I don't want to find out. It's going to be up to the Armor Digivolving part of the team to carry the fight until we can figure out a way for our partners to digivolve in enemy territory."

The leader of the digidestined group paused for a brief second before we walked over to T.K. Taichi placed his hand on T.K.'s shoulder and said, "You're going to have to be in charge of the Armor Digivolving part of the team T.K. The three new digidestined are going to need someone with experience to show them the ropes. You've got the most experience between you and Kari T.K. I also know you and know that you'll do everything in your and Patamon's power to get everyone out safely. Ranma may seem to be similar, but I don't know him like I know you."

Davis frowned seeing TA get put on the center stage by Taichi like that. He didn't like how close the new kid at school was to Kari. Part of him wanted to be the leader. After all, he had experience being a leader from his time on the school soccer team. Davis did not blurt out his thoughts and kept his mouth shut. He could see that to this group he was the new kid. The fact that Ranma Saotome, the hero/boogeyman of his older cousin's stories about Nerima, was involved made him realize just how serious this all was in reality. He just hoped that the crazies that his cousin talked about didn't get involved.

* * *

The sounds of battle could be heard coming from the Tendo Dojo late into the night. Ranma and Agunimon were locked hand to hand with each other and sweat rolling down both their faces. They split apart at an unknown signal and then resumed their attack on each other. No special moves were used by either fighter as the match continued on. This was a test of pure martial arts skill and physical ability. Ranma had the upper hand when it came to skill and practice in this sort of fighting. Agunimon was slightly faster and far stronger. However, Ranma had way more practice fighting human-sized and shaped opponents in this manner even if he was physically outclassed.

Again and again the Chosen Child and Digimon Partner attacked each other. Each time they meet left Agunimon a little weaker. Sometimes it was him just wasting energy in a futile attack. At other times Ranma delivered a painful blow that got through the digimon's defenses. The fight wasn't one sided as Agunimon returned a fair number of attacks at Ranma. It's just that Ranma was able to bend with Agunimon's attacks insuring that he stayed in control of the battle because Agunimon was never able to give as good as he got.

Forty-five minutes into the spar Agunimon had to concede after a vicious blow to the back sent him kneeling on the floor. "That's enough Ranma. I yield." Agunimon dedigivolved a few seconds after he spoke and he turned back into Flamemon. Ranma walked over to his partner and helped him back to his feet. There was a thick sheen of sweat covering Ranma's body and his silk clothes were utterly soaked as they clung to his muscled form.

Ranma gave his partner a tired smile and said, "Good match Flamemon. Lets' get some water." The duo walked over to a corner where some towels and two water bottles had been set aside before the match. Both Ranma and Flamemon quickly dried off the sweat and started to drink their water as they sat next to each other on the floor.

Once he was done with his water, Flamemon turned to look at his partner with concern in his eyes. He paused for a second unsure how to bring up what he wanted to talk about. The digimon finally let out a small sigh and said, "Ranma, what are you going to do about your fiancées? This whole situation you're in is a complete mess. I'll back you 100 percent no matter what you plan to do, but I need to know how to help you."

There was a small thud as Ranma slumped his back against the dojo wall and then he closed his eyes for a second in frustration. Ranma sent out a small weak pulse of chi and confirmed that there was no one else close enough to the dojo to overhear what he had to say. He then gave voice to his frustrations. "I can't think of a proactive plan to resolve this disaster Pops saddled me with at the moment as still keep a shred of honor thanks to that dishonorable lout. I can't really keep it intact since he shredded it with his short sighted promises. Still, I want to keep what remains I currently have with me."

It was painful for Ranma to speak of his issues with the Gordian Knot known as his relationship status. Sometimes that pain was quite literal as everyone seemed to jump in if it seemed he was about to make a move forward with any of the fiancées and he had to fight half a dozen battles with enraged would be suitors, rivals after the girls, people supporting one of the other girls, etc. The last time he did anything regarding the fiancées was when he fought Shampoo for her hand because she was under magical influence to hate him. Ranma knew from overhearing the rumors that many people thought he fought Shampoo because his pride wouldn't let him have one of the girls leave him.

Those rumors couldn't be further from the truth. Ranma would have been happy to lose a fiancée, or two, or even all of them. The catch was he wanted them to leave of their own free will. It wouldn't be honorable or right to trick the girls into breaking the engagements themselves since all of them would have to deal with more than a loss of face if the engagement ended. Maybe he could have done such a thing if he had a less caring heart, but Ranma knew himself well enough to know he could never deliberately hurt any of the girls to cause them pain.

A very world weary sigh escaped Ranma's lips as he solemnly spoke. "Unless they do something that seriously affects you or my duties as a Chosen Child I can't honorably act against any of the girls. The best plan I can think of is to just endure this headache as best I can and wait for the girls to decide among themselves if they want to pursue me. Hopefully, they'll get fed up and decide they want to try and break things off honorably so they can pursue a boyfriend with less baggage then me."

Flamemon frown when he heard his partner's plan. It was too passive for either of their usual style of problem solving. There was also a massive problem that he could see with the plan. He spoke up, "But what about your choice in the matter Ranma? Your plan leaves you as the prize to the most stubborn fiancée."

The digimon was surprised to hear a small self-mocking chuckle escape from Ranma's lips and then he muttered, "My choice? I haven't had a choice in this matter since Pops made his first engagement promise before I was born. The only way I'll get a choice is if I leave the Saotome clan and that is too much like losing for my taste. No Flamemon, I don't have a say in who I'll marry. I guess I should be happy that whoever I marry will have a say on her behalf."

Ranma then got up after saying that depressing thought and headed for the door. Flamemon didn't follow him sensing that his partner needed some time alone. The digimon sighed as he processed everything he had just been told. In his humble opinion, none of the girls after Ranma were a good fit for his partner. Flamemon would privately admit that he didn't know much about human relationships or romantic relationships in general. He'd rather focus on training than think about relationships.

However, Flamemon had been observing the various girls after Ranma since he knew the fiancée mess was something that bothered Ranma. What he had seen of the girls hadn't sat well for the digimon. He wasn't thrilled about the idea of any of them being married to his partner. Akane had too much of a temper and too low of a tolerance for the unusual for Flamemon. Ukyo also seemed to have too low of a tolerance for the unusual and from what Flamemon could see she wanted Ranma to focus on her self-appointed duties. As for Shampoo, her personality just rubbed Flamemon the wrong way and reminded him too much of Darcmon for his comfort.

Flamemon stood up and walked over to the nearest digital device which happened to be the thermostat for the dojo. He extended his arms out in front of him towards the thermostat with his palms facing it. The digimon closed his eyes and then started to pray. "Boss, I know you can hear me so please pay attention. I know you're busy trying to keep the Digital World safe from whatever darkness is behind the Digital Dork. However, can you please spare a little time to find a solution for Ranma's fiancée mess? I know he'd never ask you for help and that he'd want to solve it on his own. But, I can see its really getting to him. Any help you can give on this would be appreciated."


	8. Chapter 8

The nearby students of Furinkan High were wearily eyeing Ranma and Flamemon as the duo sat under a tree. Next to the duo were the remains of their bentos that had been demolished down to the last grain of rice. Flamemon was lazily reclining his head against the tree enjoying the feeling of a belly full of delicious food on a warm day with no threats nearby. Ranma was sitting with his back against the tree and his D-Terminal in his hands having an IM chat with Taichi and T.K. over the trio's plans for the digidestined that day.

Ranma's revealed knowledge of how to use computers was very unnerving to the students. Flamemon's existence and status as a creature from another realm was pretty much ignored by the students after the first week. There was Gosunkugi who would occasionally bother Flamemon, but that was because he thought that the digimon could help him get a demonic familiar. Furinkan was sort of seen as the place Tokyo stuck the nails that society couldn't hammer down and his looks weren't that strange after everything the students' had seen. The teachers didn't complain since Flamemon turned in his homework on time and he kept his grade point up. His grades weren't anything to write home about; but like Ranma, Flamemon was in the upper third of his class in grades.

However, Ranma's competency with computers was unnerving in a way that Flamemon's looks could never be. It made it clear to the students that they had misjudged Ranma's abilities. That was something very few people could realize and easily accept. Everyone had written Ranma off as a dumb martial arts jock with crazy problems involving girlfriends or crazy girlfriends' problems. The exact nature of his problems depended on the views of the individual students. There were clues that would have made it clear to anyone who bothered to pay attention that Ranma had something between his ears. He had kept pace with his age group in school despite many absences caused by either martial arts training or some crazy misadventure. The martial artists at school would have notice more clues to Ranma's intelligence given his breath of training and his adaptability in fights. These clues could no longer be ignored with Ranma using a computer when everyone thought he didn't know what they were for.

Daisuke didn't care about that at the moment as he closed the small gap between Ranma and the other students. He paused just out of Ranma's grab range and spoke, "Ranma, can we talk?"

Ranma looked up from his IM chat and nodded his head before motioning over to his other side if Daisuke wanted to sit. The digidestined's token ordinary friend walked over and leaned against the tree. He then looked out where some girls were sitting having lunch together while he spoke. "My cousin over in Minato called me last night asking a lot of questions about you. He said it was for a school project regarding real urban myths, but Davis was never good at lying. Please tell me why Davis was asking about you if you know."

The martial artist looked up at his friend and calmly said, "I don't know why Davis is asking about me. I can guess that it's probably has to do with the fact that we met each other in the Digital World yesterday."

It was a good thing for Daisuke that he was leaning against the tree when he heard that little fact. Daisuke lost all interest in the girls at the moment and focused all of his attention on his friend. "What? Why by the Buddha's anorexic ass was my cousin over in Flamemon's realm?"

With a shrug Ranma answered, "It turns out that your cousin is a digidestined. He came to the Digital World because he was called there."

Daisuke's legs became like Jell-O and his back slid down the truck of the tree as he collapsed next to Ranma. Good thing that all Furinkan uniforms were custom made to be extra durable and protective or Daisuke's mother and his back would not be happy with him. The teen stared vacantly into the sky imaging his cousin encountering monsters like Flamemon or even worse since rumor had it that Ranma's partner was currently only the digimon equivalent of a little child. He shuddered at the images his imagination summoned thanks to the help of the more dangerous misadventures Ranma had been on that he knew of.

Finally, Daisuke shook his head to regain his focus. He turned to look at Ranma with a haunted look on his face. "Please Ranma, I'm begging you. Please look out for my cousin. I know he's an annoying goggle-headed dork, but he's my cousin and I don't want anything happening to him."

Ranma looked at his friend and felt a powerful tug on his heartstrings. A part of Ranma wanted to loudly declare that he'd keep Davis safe for Daisuke. However, this wasn't the time for bold proclamations that couldn't be backed up with any degree of certainty. There was a degree of solemnity as Ranma spoke that Daisuke wasn't used to seeing in his friend. "I can promise you that I will do my best to keep your cousin safe. I also promise that I will see to your cousin's digimon partner's training when I meet him or her so that your cousin's partner can better protect him."

Daisuke nodded his head in acceptance. This wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear. However, he figured that Ranma must be dead serious if he wasn't making any types of boasts. He then quietly said, "Thank you Ranma. This means more to me than you can possibly know."

* * *

A digiport in a shrubland activated to deposit T.K., Kari, Davis, Iori, Miyako, Patamon, and Nyaromon a few hundred meters from a small watering hole. The summer heat of the digital shrubland hit all of the digidestined the instant they got their bearings. Davis felt the sweat starting to form on his forehead and muttered, "I thought that we were past the dog days of summer."

Iori spared a glance at the goggle head and rebuked him. "We are traveling to different locations in a different world. It is extremely foolish to expect the weather where we go to be exact same as it is in Tokyo."

An embarrassed look appeared on Davis's face for a few seconds because he acted foolish in front of Kari. He tried to cover it up by asking, "So just why did you send us out here T.A.?"

T.K. rolled his eyes at Davis's obviously deliberate and childish mangling of his name. He then replied, "Taichi, Ranma, and I decided that our best move today is to pull some digimon that have remained free out of the territory currently held by the Digimon Emperor. These digimon have some leads on the locations of several digimentals. Ranma, Flamemon, Patamon, and I are basically supposed to cause a distraction so that Darcmon can pull the other digimon out."

Miyako looked around trying to spot Ranma and didn't see any sign of the older digidestined. "Um are we early T.K.? I mean, I know that most high schools get out a little later than middle schools."

Patamon and Nyaromon both sniffed the air and then shook their heads. The rookie digimon spoke up first, "No Ranma and Flamemon are here."

A voice suddenly called out to the group from above them. "You only know that because we positioned ourselves so that you'd be downwind from us." Everyone started to furiously look around for the source of the voice. The voice, that everyone now realized was Ranma's, called out again. "Seriously, you haven't found us yet? Look up!"

The digidestined on the ground blinked their eyes in confusion for a second. They then started to look around. Kari got everyone's attention and pointed as she said, "Up there in that tree." Everyone turned to look at the nearby tree Kari was pointing at. They saw Ranma and Flamemon lazily sitting on the tallest branches that could support their weight.

Flamemon spoke up, "About time you guys spotted us. I've got two words for you: situational awareness. Learn it and live it; especially when you're in the Digital World." Flamemon paused for a second and casually jumped down to land in front of them. "Welcome to Digimon Survival 101 with me, Professor Flamemon Cankickyourass. Lesson one, 'civilization' as humans consider it doesn't really exist in the Digital World so being an inattentive village idiot will get you killed. To survive you need to either have the strength to defend yourself, have a friend who's strong enough to defend you, or know how to run and hide."

"Let's quickly review the three survival options and see how you all stack up. On having the strength to defend yourself, only Patamon qualifies if he armor digivolves. Before you were told Ranma and I were here you again only had Patamon to defend all of you. One champion to defend six non-combatants is not good odds. Now the last category was where you all failed utterly. A key point of knowing how to run and hide is to be aware of where people could hide so you know where to run to in an emergency. This also helps you to know when and where to run since it will tell you were hidden attackers could come from."

"That's enough Flamemon," Ranma said in a completely serious tone. He looked at his partner and said, "Remember, the newbies are here primarily to observe and learn with the slim possibility that their partners might be nearby." Ranma then turned to the younger digidestined an briefly examined their faces. T.K. and Kari were both upset that they had let hard won survival skills rust now that they were aware of what had happened. Miyako, if Ranma was reading her correctly, was embarrassed because she looked stupid in front of someone she liked. Ranma sent a silent prayer to Huanglongmon that the person wasn't him; he had enough girl problems without having to deal with a middle schooler having a crush on him. Iori looked thoughtful and seemed to be paying attention to what he was being told. Davis, well, he looked like every fourth word was going over his head.

The oldest present digidestined clapped his hands together and said, "Okay everyone. We are currently in a relatively safe zone within enemy territory. I say relatively safe because I was able to get rid of the surveillance micro-camera while making it look natural. This isn't something I will be able to do often or otherwise our enemy is going to send his servants to investigate every time a camera goes down. After we leave this meeting spot we all stay silent unless we absolutely have to speak. Assume anything you say will be heard by that so-called Emperor. Also know that information is on a need to know basis. If I or T.K. tells you that you don't need to know about something then don't ask about it."

"Now, let's go over the plan to make sure that everyone is on the same page. 5 kilometers that way," Ranma paused to point in a direction opposite of the digiport facing, "Is the area of the Digital World that isn't controlled by the Emperor. 4 kilometers in the opposite direction is our target: a holding arena for captured digimon. Our mission is simple we get in, cause a huge ruckus, hopefully free some digimon, and get out before we're taken out."

Ranma focused on Patamon for a moment and then said, "You and T.K. are going to be on the outside causing a distraction since we don't know what your armor form is at the moment. Try to use your armor form's attack to destroy the Dark Rings if there is not too much risk of permanently hurting the other digimon. On the other hand, if your armor form's attacks are too powerful or more area of effect you should focus on destroying the Emperor's buildings. If he has to spend time and resources repairing things in his turf that means less time and resources for him to go after free zones in the Digital World."

The older digidestined's gaze shifted to the others as he told them their part of the plan. "The rest of you are going to be hiding a little ways away from the compound observing everything. If you see enemy movements like a squad of controlled digimon coming in you are to send T.K. and I a text message letting us know. Flamemon and I are going to sneak into the compound and try to free some of the captive digimon. Are there any questions?"

Davis piped up, "I thought that we were supposed to help some free digimon escape. I didn't hear you mention them or Darcmon anywhere in the plan. Where are they so we can help them?"

Flamemon moved to swat Davis on the head. However, Ranma caught his partner's arm and gave him a quick look. He then turned to Davis and said, "We're helping Darcmon get those digimon to safety by conducting this attack and drawing the Emperor's attention to us. Anything else regarding that is strictly need to know and even I don't need to know. All I know is how to send Darcmon a quick message to let her know we're about to strike and that's it."

Miyako made the time out symbol with her hands and said, "Wait a moment here. You mean none of us know anything about Darcmon's rescue? What if she gets into trouble and needs our help to bail her out?"

T.K. quickly spoke up before Ranma could answer the new girl. "Sometimes you just have to trust in your teammates and their ability to handle something Miyako. Don't get me wrong, I wish we could all work together so that we can all cover each other. However, sometimes that either isn't possible or isn't reasonable given the situation. Ranma, Taichi, and I all talked about this beforehand and all of us agree that this is the best plan we can currently make. Now, those digimon aren't going to just free themselves so let's move out."

* * *

It took Ranma a little over an hour to lead everyone to the outskirts of the Emperor's local barracks. That was when the first real problem came in as the team saw that the barracks was on a small hill and the surrounding area had been completely cleared of any sort of cover. Ranma pulled out his D-Terminal so that everyone hidden with him in the bushes could see it. The other digidestined nodded their heads and pulled out their D-Terminals as Ranma sent them an IM. 'Stealth entrance is a no go. Enemy has prepared the barracks security too well to hope he forgot the security cameras.'

T.K. quickly typed a reply, 'What do we do now?'

Ranma looked around for a moment and then pointed to a tree growing out of a bush. He then typed, 'You and Patamon go and hide there. I'll make my way somewhere in the opposite direction with Flamemon. Both Flamemon and I will attack the barracks drawing attention to us. This will give Patamon enough time to Armor Digivolve and figure out his new attacks. After he does that, he jumps in and hits them from behind. Aim for the Dark Rings and try to break just them.' Ranma then sent another quick message after double checking he was sending a private message. 'If push comes to shove it's better for the digimon to have to be reformatted then to remain slaves.'

T.K.'s and Patamon's eyes widened when they saw Ranma's private message. They glanced at each other and then Patamon solemnly nodded his little head in agreement. A resigned looked crossed T.K.'s face as he nodded his head once in acceptance. Deleting digimon was never something he wanted to do; in fact, he felt almost sickened at the idea. Back during the first adventure in the Digital World T.K. and Patamon were kept at the sidelines as much as possible by the older kids. When Patamon had to fight to the reformat it was usually under the direst of circumstances which made the idea of doing so that much worse for T.K.

However, T.K. also realized that he was one of the older kids now. The new digidestined might be around his age, but in terms of life experience he and Kari were far older than them. This was now his burden to bear. At least he and Patamon had a chance to defeat their enemies now without having to reformat them. That was a small comfort that Matt and the others never had back then. T.K. kept that thought in the forefront of his mind as he and Patamon made their way to their spot.

Ranma and Flamemon then made their way around to a good spot to launch the attack. He got the text from T.K. saying that they were in position and nodded his head. He held out his digivice so that Flamemon could see. The rookie had a resigned look in his face and nodded his head. Ranma called out, "Digi-Armor Energize."

The red light of the digimental of Duty shot out from the digivice and into Flamemon. This caused the digimon to chant as he transformed. "Flamemon Armor Digivolve to… Kazemon!" The now champion level armor digimon shot into the sky like a rocket. Ranma followed right behind her on the ground charging up a Moko Takabisha. Kazemon powered up a Hurricane Wave and launched her attack a few seconds before Ranma unleased his attack. The Hurricane Wave's little drill like mini tornados acted as drills creating cracks and weaknesses all throughout the barracks wall. This allowed the relatively weak chi ball to turn a massive section of the wall into shrapnel blasting into the barracks.

Pandemonium reigned inside the barracks thanks to the combo attack. Many digimon were injured from the shrapnel and the programs in their Dark Rings didn't know what to do in this situation. Several of the Emperor's troops turned on their compatriots thanks to their Dark Rings being disabled from the flying shrapnel. The digimons had been aware of everything while they were under the Dark Rings control and, upon realizing they could control themselves again, were determined to have payback. The controlled digimon tried to retaliate, but the targeting priorities in the Dark Rings' software cause them to miss the freed but still collared digimon. These attacks plowed into the weakened barracks causing more shrapnel to be thrown up as complex started to collapse.

Ranma and Kazemon jumped into the fray to add their personal brand of combat chaos. The duo gracefully moved around the various attacks of the digimon in the barracks and attacked the Dark Rings that they could see. Most of the digimon in the barracks were physically large and impressive Champions. On open ground Ranma and Kazemon would have been in a tricky if not desperate situation. However, the barrack's limited space made it like shooting fish in a barrel to the two nimble warriors. Almost every time they shattered a Dark Ring a new digimon joined their side. Occasionally, they would shatter a disabled Dark Ring. On one of those times the digimon in question squawked out, "I'm on your side!"

Patamon and T.K. were on the other side of the barracks blinking their eyes in shock as they witnessed the level of damage Ranma and Kazemon could create. They soon shook off their shock and then Patamon turned to look at his partner. "I suppose that we should help them even if I'm not sure they need the help."

T.K. nodded his head and replied, "Agreed." He pulled out his recently upgraded digivice and looked at his partner. "Let's try this out, "Digi-Armor Energize!"

A golden-yellow light left the digivice and connected to Patamon who felt a weird sensation as he was imbued with the power of a digimental for the first time. He called out, "Patamon Armor Digivolve to… Pegasusmon!" The now equine digimon shook his mane and took a few tentative steps in place as he tested out his new body. Pegasusmon stretched out his wings and then nodded his head. He turned to T.K. and said, "Get on my back T.K. I can carry you as I fly and this way I can make sure you're safe."

T.K. was about to agree when he saw a Devidramon come flying in from the direction that led deeper in the Emperor's territory. "Let's wait a moment and try to see what's happening Pegasusmon. Ranma and Kazemon might need us to provide a distraction very shortly."

Pegasusmon turned his head to the direction T.K. was looking in and narrowed his eyes. "Agreed," he firmly said agreeing with his partner.

* * *

Wormmon looked up at Ken with worry clearly written on the rookie's face. He had been worried ever since whatever had gotten in his partner turned Ken from the sweet and caring boy into this evil caricature calling himself the Digimon Emperor. The digimon had been trying to help his partner remember who he was and he would never give up. One day, Wormmon firmly believe with all his heart, Ken would recover himself. On that day he'd be there to help his partner through all the guilt and pain that Ken would feel over his actions while in this state.

However, Wormmon was worried that Ken was flying into a world of hurt. Something had attacked one of Ken's barracks and was freeing the captive digimon. This was something that Wormmon was secretly pleased to hear. The problem for the rookie was that Ken was flying right towards the attack putting himself in danger. Also, there was only one duo that Wormmon could think of that would have the guts to launch an attack like this. Who could say how Ranma and Flamemon would react to Ken being in this altered state?

The Digimon Emperor was frosting with rage at the thought that some lowly digimon didn't know their place in his kingdom. His eyes widened in shock when he saw that one of the attackers was human. How could someone get into his digital world? Ranma twisted around an attack unknowingly letting the Emperor see his face. For the life of himself, the Emperor found himself shaking at the sight of the interloper and a sense of dread rushed down his back. This dread quickly was burned as fuel for utter rage. How dare anyone make him uneasy in his kingdom!

In his rage the Emperor yelled out, "What do you think you're doing in my kingdom!"

Ranma and Kazemon both froze a second when they heard that scream. Both chosen child and digimon felt a chill down their backs as they recognized the voice. Ranma and Kazemon were hoping that somehow they had misheard as they turned as one to face the Digimon Emperor. The disguise didn't fool either of them even though they wished it would. Wormmon's presence was the damming final nail in the coffin of Ranma's denial about Ken.

A furious red aura erupted from Ranma as his fists tightened in rage to the point that his fingernails drew blood. Murphy had completely crossed the line so far that he had left it in another time zone. Just what the hell had he done in a previous lifetime that was so terrible that every single old friend he hadn't seen in years had to become his enemy? Why by all the kami on Earth and Digital World did the darkness have to corrupt Kenny?

There was a guttural growl that escaped Ranma's lips before he spoke in a chilling tone. "Your kingdom," Ranma's aura shifted in its feeling to that of a cold fury as he applied the Soul of Ice to try and control himself. "How dare you say that about the Digital World Kenny! I taught you better than that and if I have to I'll beat you black and blue until you're speaking sense again."

Kazemon snapped her head over to look at Ranma in surprise. Her partner's declaration wasn't a surprise to the fairy like digimon. What was surprising her was that she was faintly feeling an energy rush coming from Ranma. The energy felt somewhat like what the energy she got from him immediately before she digivolved. However, this energy felt darker and twisted for lack of a better word. That feeling and the fact that the energy was somehow getting past the normal block on energy transference needed for digivolution made it clear she wanted nothing to do with it. Kazemon used her martial arts training to start radiating the energy in a somewhat similar manner to a human's battle aura.

A dark red with flecks of black aura surrounded Kazemon. The Digimon Emperor took a step back at the sight since it wasn't an area attack and he couldn't recognize what he was seeing. Wormmon started to shake in fear. He wasn't sure how Flamemon had managed to digivolve even with the anti-digivolution field. There was also the question of why his old friend had changed sexes. On second thought, it would probably be a good idea not to ask that question.

This proverbial standoff ended with Pegasusmon shouting out, "Equus Beam!" Devidramon hastily flew in an evasive manner to avoid having its Dark Ring hit by the green energy attack. Both the Emperor and Wormmon were forced to their knees from the sudden shift in their ride.

The Emperor shifted his focus and saw T.K. riding Pegasusmon as the flying horse seemed to positioning himself for another attack. At this point the Emperor yelled out to his ride, "Take me back to Base!" There were too many unknown variables at the moment. He needed to rethink things to figure out how other humans were entering his world.

T.K. watched as the Devidramon started to fly away. For a second he thought about having Pegasusmon pursue and try to end this fight right here. However, common sense almost instantly overpowered that thought. He had no clue what the Digimon Emperor could do and charging into battle with one newly transformed champion digimon on his side was a very foolish thing to do if he could avoid battle. There was also that disturbing aura coming from Ranma and Kazemon that needed to be addressed. T.K. turned his head back to the barracks and saw that a couple of digimon still had Dark Rings on them. He leaned over and asked his partner. "Got anything to get those rings off of them?"

Pegasusmon nodded his head and said, "Consider it done T.K." He then lined himself up for a strafing run and called out his attack, "Shooting Star!" A barrage of star shaped energy bolts were released from Pegasusmon's wings and flew straight at the remaining Dark Rings. Cracks started to appear on the rings after they were hit and then they shattered after a few seconds freeing the remaining digimon in the barracks.

The duo circled around in the air once to make sure there weren't any more immediate threats. Pegasusmon landed a meter or two away from Ranma. T.K. looked and was surprised by the look of utter rage and self-loathing on Ranma's face. Not sure what to do, T.K. called out to the other digidestined, "Ranma, the Emperor is gone."

"Get away," Ranma muttered in a subzero tone. Ranma turned to look at T.K. and yelled, "Get out of here right now!" His battle aura rapidly grew with every word he spoke. Pegasusmon decided that discretion was the better part of valor and quickly took to the air before T.K. could get off his back. The remaining digimon in the barracks, with the exception of Kazemon, also headed Ranma's warning and ran away as fast as they could. Ranma looked to the sky as his rage chi soaked battle aura bubbled around him like a boiling cauldron. He yelled out as a pillar of crimson red chi shot out into the sky, "Dragon's Defiant Death Roar!"

All of the remaining digidestined stared in shock from their hiding place as a massive sphere of red chi formed in the sky above the barracks. The chi ball hung in the sky for a few seconds like a swollen angry sun. It then fell onto the barracks creating a massive explosion. All the hidden digidestined were force to hug the ground. T.K. held onto Pegasusmon for dear life as the flying steed was buffeted by the wind. It took all of Pegasusmon's skill to keep his partner from falling off of him or crashing into ground. Although, if push came to shove, Pegasusmon would have happily broken all four legs if doing so would keep T.K. safe.

Davis was the first one to poke his head up after the wind died down. He blinked his eyes in shock and muttered in shock, "No way. How can a person do something like this?" The barracks was completely gone with only a shallow crater where it had stood. Only Kazemon and Ranma remained standing in the blast crater. They survived because it was just Ranma's chi in the attack causing the impromptu named chi attack variant Dragon's Defiant Death Roar to pass through them.

With all of his rage release in the attack, Ranma was only left with a feeling of hopelessness and despair. Tears started to form in his eyes as he whispered, "Why?" T.K. and Davis both watched as Ranma fell to his knees. The tears started to freely flow down Ranma's cheeks unseen by the younger digidestined. Pain laced his voice as the older chosen child muttered to himself, "Why does this keep happening to me? What have I done to deserve having my old friends become my enemies?"

* * *

Author's Note: for those asking, there is a reason why I have a misspelling of T.K.'s name every time Davis says it. In the English dub, which was what I originally watched, Davis would always deliberately mess up T.K.'s name once or twice an episode in the beginning half of season 02. It was his childish way of taking pot shots at the one he considered his main rival for Kari's affections. The habit dropped off later on in the show as the character matured. Since Davis hasn't reached that level of maturity yet, he's taking his pot shots at T.K.


End file.
